I Know My Duty
by Ithilwen K-Bane
Summary: Edward walked a knife's edge in Volterra. What if things hadn't gone quite so well? Love can survive when it is surrounded by monsters, but it does not survive unchanged, especially not for one of the Volturi. Deviation 'fic-New Moon. Canon Edward and other characters.
1. Prologue: From Here

I feel that this requires an explanation. The past couple of months have been rough. I needed some distraction and a place to put all my frustrations to kill off some of my more uppity brain cells. The logical thing to do would have been to imbibe very large quantities of very cheap alcohol, but neither my budget nor my liver was up to that.

...So I wrote a _Twilight _'fic.

I've been toying around with this and one other main idea all winter. I've got a number of scenes fleshed out and a very general and amorphous idea of where I want to go. I can't promise that I'll finish this thing, but I hope you get what I got out of it: the relief and satisfaction that comes with really %$#ing up some fictional characters.

That being said, _Twilight_ and its three and a half sequels are the property of Stephenie Meyer. This is canon universe. Deviation starts during _New Moon_.

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_ "That's dependent on his finding a way to force me to do his will. He knows me, and he knows how unlikely that is."_

_ "...he also knows your weaknesses."_

_—_Edward and Eleazar, _Breaking Dawn_

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She was alive.

My body twisted like an eel as it hit the stone floor at Aro's feet, but she was alive. Jane's gift flayed open my every nerve and put them all to the torch. If I hadn't been able to see myself through Alice's eyes, I would have thought that Caius had given the order and I was being burned alive.

I threw my mind out into the room, anything to get away from what I was feeling, but the pain kept pulling me back. I only got flashes in between the waves: Aro was greedy and curious. My talent and Bella's silence both fascinated him, but most of his focus was on Alice.

My teeth gnashed the stale air as my bones were crushed in place.

Jane's narrow, stunted mind was alive with envy. She didn't like that Master was so focused on his new guest.

My hands were clenching uselessly against the stones. If I'd had blood, it would have poured from my skin like sweat. If I'd had blood it would have boiled, burned me away and ended this.

Alice was afraid. She couldn't see Jane's thoughts and she couldn't see our fate for certain, but there was a decision coming. She _had_ seen the futures that sprouted from Volterra, and she was afraid.

And half the other vampires in the room were thinking about the warm, sweet-scented human trapped in Alice's arms and how good her blood would taste. Image after image of different sets of steel-strong hands and knifing teeth flickered through my head like some grotesque film. Instead of my life flashing before my eyes, I saw her struggling and bleeding out over and over through the minds of people who liked it.

Far away, someone was shouting, "Stop! Stop it!"

With what little focus I retained, I gave myself a moment to realize why all this had happened.

It was my fault.

Oh, if I had called Alice instead of Charlie or asked whose funeral he meant, I would be in Forks now, forgiven or not, but carelessness had never been my real problem. My biggest mistakes had been selfish ones. When I'd first made my case to the Volturi, Aro had asked to know my thoughts. I'd agreed. What would my secrets matter when I was dead? Only I hadn't realized just how many secrets I'd had, probably because most of them weren't mine. Just like with James a year earlier, I'd only drawn my enemy's attention to the prize—my sister and her visions, my Bella and her unsolvable puzzle of a mind.

I'd forgotten what I owed to my father and mother, to the sister who had come to save me, to the memory of the human girl I loved. Like now, with the hem of Aro's robe blurring in and out of focus as my arms and legs convulsed like a coyote in a trap, I'd been too wrapped up in my own pain to see straight.

"Jane," Aro said aloud. The agony ceased. I was on my feet before the echo of it left my muscles. I knew what I had to do. Aro's mind was alive with curiosity. If Aro touched Alice, he would never let her leave, not to serve the master of another coven. Most of the gathered vampires were drawn to Bella's scent. If this lasted much longer, one of them would find an excuse to claim her blood.

So I had to keep it from happening.

I had to get Alice away from Aro before he could come up with a plausible reason to ask for her thoughts. I had to get Bella away from the Volturi before any of them lost their control or their patience. And if I could leave with them ...good.

The next few minutes would determine if we all lived or died. I could not control the outcome, not alone, but I would not forget myself again.

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If you wish to leave a review but are at a loss as to what to say, "Should've gone with the booze," will be considered appropriate.

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	2. Ch 1 Yes

I'd been going to hold this back for another day or so, but I have an announcement to make. I realize that I've not built a reputation in _Twilight_ fandom (yet) but this weekend I will be representing the fandom at the Support Stacie April Author Auction.

Stacie Holeman is a woman, a fan and a mother of three with four kinds of cancer and no health insurance. The folks at Support Stacie (dot) net have set up this auction to raise funds for her medical care and well-being. What that means is that, starting on April 3, 2009, you can go to Majik's World of Fanfic and place a bid for my services this coming April. Within thirty days, you will have a minimum 2500-word 'fic in either _Twilight_, _Underworld_, or _Inuyasha_ fandom and Ms. Holeman will have minimum five of your dollars!

...this may come as a surprise considering the current piece, but I primarily write comedies ...comedies that get nominated for action/adventure awards, but comedies nonetheless. Ask for porn at your own risk. No rape 'fics.

Registration at Majik's appears to be required for bidding, so go check the place out! Other participants include ffnet's own AngstGoddess003 and the hilarious Kinolaughs.

Majik's Ithilwen page: .?f=101&t=2347

Majik's author auction page: .?f=101

Support Stacie: /?page_id=9

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_The last clear memory that I have of Forks is of standing in my father's living room with two of my best friends, making a decision. Alice wanted me to go to Volterra to save Edward and Jacob wanted, needed, begged me to stay. Two people. Two paths. Two ways my life could have gone._

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It was one of those choices that doesn't feel like a choice. Sure, I was physically capable of not picking up my passport, not getting in that car and not getting on that plane, but it just wasn't in me. No matter what Edward had done to me, I couldn't let him die without even trying to help. I owed him that much. I owed his family that much. I owed myself that much._

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I simply had to do it._

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"Stop!" I called out, struggling against Alice's arms. "Stop it!"

Edward was writhing on the floor in front of me, his mouth gaping as his eyes stared at nothing. I looked back at Jane. I don't know what I expected to see in her face. Concentration, maybe, like a fisherman with a fighting trout on the hook. If not that then anger or fear or something to match what was boiling up inside me at the sight of Edward in agony on the ground.

She was smiling. She was watching Edward with a mild, disinterested smile, like a woman stirring a batch of oatmeal.

"Jane," Aro said lightly, as if correcting a child.

Jane looked up at Aro and Edward went still. I held my breath.

Aro inclined his head toward Alice and me. I saw Jane's bland expression falter as her eyes fell on Alice. The pieces fell together as I watched her lips press tight. Jane had glared at Alice when she'd first walked in and every time Aro spoke to her.

Aro meant me. But Jane was jealous of Alice. And he hadn't come out and said which of us he'd meant.

Behind me, I felt Alice's arms go slack. "Don't..." she murmured vacantly, but to who or about what I couldn't say. I didn't know what she'd seen, only what I was seeing.

The smile was back.

The world around me seemed to turn red. That Jane could do such things and look so calm! And to Alice, _Alice__!_ I felt rage explode in my chest. Hardly knowing what I was doing, I clenched my hands down on top of Alice's cold arms hard enough to bruise my palms, as if an inch of flesh and bone could make any difference.

And all of a sudden I could feel that she was there. Not see, not touch. I could feel her like a ray of light behind me. My breath caught in my lungs. Jane had to have gotten me after all. I had to have been hallucinating. I was really twitching on the ground, my brain firing up some vision to keep me sane.

Edward's head snapped around. "Alice!" he called out.

Nothing happened except that Jane frowned slightly. I could feel Alice grow tense again, waiting. Edward's face was still in panic. He was staring at Alice as if she were already dead. My heart hammered in my chest and I twisted to look at her face. Alice was tense, but not with pain. She looked back at me with her gold eyes full of fear and far away.

Jane snarled again, dark red eyes aimed at me this time. I flinched away from her. In my mind's eye, Alice's light died. At least her attention was on me this time.

"Alice!" Edward said again, in relief. "Alice, are you all—" he stopped. He looked from Alice to me and back. His eyes unfocused like a blind man's as he listened to something that I could not hear. Behind me, I felt Alice's head turn, but I couldn't see her expression, only Edward's. Something was dawning, sharp and dreadful behind his eyes.

Alice's hands gripped my arms, tight to the point of pain. I didn't care, just watching Edward's eyes, as if I could see through them to whatever reflected vision had taken over Alice's head.

"Ah," Aro's voice broke the silence in a way that made all the tiny hairs on my arms stand up. "Well that is interesting. Just to be sure," he said, addressing Jane, "you were aiming for young Alice, weren't you, dear one?"

"Yes, Master," she admitted with sullen anger, not taking her eyes off of me.

Edward eyes flicked to Aro. I felt my throat go dry at what I saw in them.

"And you couldn't hear her thoughts just then, could you, Edward?"

Edward didn't answer. Something had changed. Something had gone wrong. I watched the fight go out of Edward's posture, just like it had in the alley not even an hour earlier. Aro wasn't going to let us leave, at least not all of us. I closed my eyes in resolve. Alice and Edward hadn't broken the rules. He'd already said so. That only left one person.

When I opened my eyes again, I found Aro's gaze fixed on me. "Is that the first time you've done that, child?" he asked, something appraising in his tone.

"Done what?" I blurted. I hadn't done anything except freak out and almost die.

A long moment passed. I wondered how many wheels were turning in the head of this being who could carry so many lifetimes' worth of stolen thoughts.

Caius and Aro exchanged a knowing glance. "Well we can't let this go to waste, can we brother?" asked Aro. Caius raised an eyebrow and nodded balefully. Marcus looked on with dull interest.

"No," Edward said out loud. "She hasn't told our secret. She isn't going to. She's no threat—"

Aro held up one petrified hand in what might otherwise have been a comforting gesture. "Surely you meant well, young Edward," he said.

Edward was still shaking his head. "No," he said again, taking one sharp step toward Aro. "You and I both know that—"

Aro nodded to Jane. I felt a cry leave my throat as Edward collapsed back to the floor. "Edward!" I screamed. I lunged toward him, but Alice caught my arms again. "Edward!"

"That's enough, dear one," said Aro. He'd spoken to Jane but he was looking at me. "Has to be touching her subject, I suppose. Hardly unusual." I got the feeling that the comment was not directed at me. His cobwebbed eyes flicked this way and that. I knew that look, and I'd liked it much better when it had been Edward in the lunch room in Forks a thousand years before. Aro was trying to puzzle me out.

"Felix."

I had barely registered Caius's command before I was snatched away from Alice by something that gripped my arms so hard I was sure they would burst like rotten fruit. He jerked me across the room so fast that my head flopped to the side like a rag doll's. I heard a yelp, like a frightened puppy, but then I sealed my jaws, my lips, my throat. This man would not hear me scream, I resolved as I looked into the crimson-black eyes, too close, too close to me. _Dibs_, I could see in them. My breathing was coming too fast, making me lightheaded, but I set my teeth and raised my chin. Felix would _never_ hear me scream.

Edward let out a snarl so deep I swore it could have shaken the building. "No," he swore darkly, making the word sound like the blackest curse ever made.

"You have committed a crime, Edward Cullen," said Caius. I couldn't take my eyes off Felix, but I could hear the smugness audible in his voice. "You have not kept our secret. The law is clear. You must face punishment—" I flinched in Felix's huge hands. "And the human's life is forfeit."

Was it over, then? My chest shook in a silent sob. Was Edward going to die? At least I wouldn't have to wait long.

"But..." Aro joined in. "...it is always _such_ a shame to waste potential. And what this child displays," he paused, as if gesturing toward something, "is worth making certain exceptions—" Felix looked up as Aro addressed his last words to him. "...and taking certain risks."

What the heck was he talking about? I tried to push the fear out of my mind long enough to make sense of what was happening, but I was a deer in the headlights. I could only see the truck barreling down to snuff me out.

"He can't do it," Edward was growling back at Aro. "Felix doesn't have the kind of control for that." I pictured him, shaking with anger in my mind's eye. I still couldn't look away from Felix. "He doesn't even _mean_ to! All he's thinking about is—" Edward cut off, grinding his teeth together.

"Come now, Edward, there's no need to impugn dear Felix," said Aro. "His control is as good as anyone's."

I barely heard him. I was staring at two thread-thin rings of red around perfect blackness. Felix was thirsty, thirsty and holding on to me like a farmer would hold a disobedient cat. The long silence stretched out around me and, without shifting his grip, Felix turned to watch Aro. I still couldn't pry my eyes off him, not even to look at Edward. Felix frowned, just barely, his gaze shifting from one place to another. I still couldn't look away.

My heart pounded, keeping time.

"You'll let the girl go?" Edward asked. But he asked as if he already knew the answer.

"She knows too much," said Aro, as if he were commenting on the weather.

"And if I accept?" Edward asked quietly.

The message took a moment to sink in. Suddenly, I understood. Aro hadn't really been speaking to Edward. He was speaking to the crowd. Whatever Aro really meant, whatever Edward was really agreeing to, none of us had been able to hear.

I started struggling in Felix's grip again. Marcus's eyes turned my way, and Felix gave a near-silent laugh, but there was no other change. It was like fighting a mountain. I shook my head, anger building like a bonfire in my chest. The room was still, but it was a lying stillness, as if we were all in a raft in fast water being buffeted by rocks on all sides and we'd just been released into the eddying stillness at the top of the waterfall. Any moment, it would all come crashing down.

Edward stared at Aro for what seemed like a long time and then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded.

"Felix," Aro said again, and I felt the iron arms release me. I stumbled, actually putting one hand to the floor as I fought with my abused ribcage. The world was going brown and I had to bring it back or I would not wake up again.

"Bella," Edward called quietly. His voice was calm, too calm. I looked up and saw that his features were composed, pain marring his eyes but nothing more. "Bella, come here," he said.

I stumbled to my feet and ran. He caught me before I could fall again.

He didn't look at me, turning his head to face Aro and Caius. "I would like to do this privately," he said. But Alice was already shaking her head, just barely. If I hadn't known her as well as I did, I'd have missed it.

"You do not choose the time and place of your punishment," Caius announced.

"Your duty," finished Aro, but whether he was correcting Caius or just adding to what he'd said, I didn't care. Edward seemed to want to hold me at arm's length, but I had my temple pressed against his chest, both arms around his waist. I knew how pathetic I must have looked next to Edward, like a dust bunny clinging to a designer suit, but I couldn't help it. I'd come to Italy to save him and he wasn't saved.

"And..." I felt Edward's eyes flick down to me. "...after?"

"Do not worry, young Edward," Aro answered with an indulgent nod toward Jane, "we have had newborns here before, though I must admit, it has been some time."

Newborns? New vampires...

I swallowed hard as I breathed Edward's scent into my lungs, forcing my breathing back into a normal pace. They meant to turn me. Aro wanted Edward to turn me. My fingers tightened on Edward's bare arm. I'd been ready for this months ago, I reminded myself. Hell, I'd been ready six hours ago on the plane from New York to Rome, but was I ready for it now?

"Are you certain that's wise, brother?" Caius was saying. "A newborn in Volterra? _In_ the city proper?"

"Oh I'm sure we can all help keep little Bella from getting into too much trouble," Aro murmured back.

Behind us, someone gave a low chuckle. I felt Edward's arm twist me to one side as his upper body turned toward the sound with a deep snarl that I could feel rippling all the way to my bones. Again, the other vampires murmured disbelievingly at Edward, but Felix only smiled.

Marcus raised one smooth black eyebrow at Edward's anger, like a sleepy tiger watching two birds fight over a worm. He cast his bored, cobwebbed eyes on Edward. "Why all this fuss?" he asked languidly. "Simply take her for a mate yourself."

I felt Edward flinch. As sick as this was, as much as it galled me for Marcus to speak of me that way, as if he had the right to speak of me that way, Edward's action still stung.

An eternal annoyance. I took a breath. At least I would have more than one lifetime to try to change his mind. Assuming, of course, that I could make it through the next ten minutes. Even with the purplish shadows beneath his hunger-dark eyes, I trusted Edward's control, but I didn't trust Caius and I didn't trust Aro. And I didn't need Edward's gift to know what was running through Felix's mind. It was one of two things and I didn't like either of them.

I turned to Alice, wishing that she could read minds too.

_Am I going to make it?_ I tried to project with my eyes, but Alice only looked back at me, with the same sad, guilty look.

I could still feel Felix's hold on my arms like a shadow against my skin. I inhaled sharply, filling my lungs with Edward instead of him. "Thank you," I whispered. "I'm sorry."

His hands gripped my jaw, forcing my eyes his. They were black and thirsty, not the perfect honey-gold that I remembered. "This is not what I wanted for you," he hissed. "This is what I was trying to prevent. This is—" he closed his eyes, breathing deeply. "I lied," he said.

I stared back at him, not sure what he was talking about. The thick, electric air had grown heavy in my lungs.

I understood. I finally understood. I'd laughed with werewolves and their claw-scarred families. I'd known good vampires. I'd been hunted as prey. All of a sudden I was very aware of exactly _where_ I was. My eyes fell on the drains in the floor ...and the marks where someone hadn't quite scrubbed the stains away. I swallowed hard, suddenly sure of what this room was used for, and all of Aro's smiling courtesy seemed to twist inside me.

I understood why Edward thought he was a monster.

"You're not like them," I whispered. "You're better than this."

His eyes were strangely empty. "No, Bella. _You_ are."

"Young Edward," Caius called over Edward's left shoulder. "Do you mean to carry out your end of this or not?"

I was suddenly aware of eyes, dozens of eyes, red and waiting.

"Yes," said Edward, eyes still on me.

Over Edward's shoulder, I saw Caius tip his head questioningly. Something hung in the air.

"Yes, Master," Edward corrected himself.

The word ripped through me like iron. I started shaking my head, or I would have if Edward hadn't held me still. No. No, I wasn't worth it. Edward had to go back. Edward and Alice both had to make it back. I opened my mouth to tell him it was all right, that he really could leave me here, that I was happier to have had these few minutes with him than a hundred gray years. I wanted to remind him about Emmett and Alice and Carlisle and Esme. I couldn't make a sound.

"Close your eyes?" he whispered. "Bella, please close your eyes."

I couldn't obey. There were some things in this room I wanted to memorize. Alice, with her dark gold eyes full of secrets, her mouth fixed in dismay. And Edward. I hadn't had a chance to look at him, really look at him, since that one frightened flash in the alley. Closing my eyes was the last thing I wanted to do.

Behind him, I saw Jane standing quietly in her dark gray cloak, that same poison smile on her face.

I felt my hands tighten on his wrist, my heart pounding until my skin burned hot. They couldn't have him. They couldn't _have him_.

It came as suddenly as it had with Alice. I imagined I could feel Edward in front of me, from his skin to his unbeating heart, and he was _alive_ and as brilliant as Alice had been. Even more, he was part of me.

"Bella," Edward said quietly, rubbing the pad of his thumb across my chin. "Close your eyes, Bella."

I did as he said. After all, I could still see him.

I closed my eyes and was immediately glad I had. It was easier to believe that no one was watching. The red-eyed vampires around us all disappeared. Felix, Aro, Caius, Jane... They were all gone. We were in a silent, empty room, and this wasn't about anyone but us. I concentrated on the space around us and then on the feel of Edward's cold hands on my face and his blazing life in my mind.

I heard Edward exhale. I felt him lean forward and press his forehead against mine for a long moment. His hands shifted to the back of my neck as he gently turned my face away, exposing my throat.

At first, it wasn't so bad.

I felt his cold lips touch my neck, and then his teeth swiftly cut through skin and tendon to slice open the nest of blood vessels at my pulse point. It hurt, and just knowing that I was bleeding out was enough to make my head go light, but it was nothing to having my leg broken. The shards of glass in my arm on my last birthday had been worse. I swayed but didn't fall.

I could still feel Edward's mouth at my throat, feel his tongue smoothing across the wound in my neck, stirring up a thousand conflicting feelings. He was killing me. He was saving me. He was taking my blood. I was giving it to him.

My fingers flexed on the back of his head as the moment wound down. Somewhere in my blood-starved brain, I knew this was an illusion, another hallucination from my dying neurons as they waved goodbye, but I swore I could feel the swirling dust motes in the air go still around us, spinning out my final seconds into a peaceful dream. My heart beat steadily and I felt myself flowing into him. _Yes,_ I thought, _take this life. Take this body. I trust you, my love. I'm already yours._

Edward's light flared and I felt him shudder in my arms, from pleasure or revulsion. Probably both, I thought.

And then I couldn't think any more.

My eyes snapped open as a gallon of congealed battery acid plowed through my veins. I could hear someone's strangled gasp and I was pretty sure it was mine. I knew exactly what was happening. I had wanted it to happen, but that didn't make the pain any less. I was on fire from the inside out. The room spun and my eyes met the arched, shadowed ceiling. Edward had lowered me to the ground. My moment of peace was gone. Edward was all business now, performing his duty like an unwilling bridegroom. His teeth pierced my neck again, the insides of my elbows, pushing more venom inside me. Through the haze, saw him hesitate at my left wrist before driving his teeth through the scar James had left there. I saw a drop of my blood on his lips as he rolled up the wet cuffs of my jeans to bite the pulse at my ankle.

My focus was already fading when Edward jerked his head away from my leg, snarling loudly at something outside my blurring field of vision.

I heard a low chuckle. Felix. "You missed a spot," he called darkly. "Want me to get it for you?"

Edward glared and turned his attention back to me, smoothing my jeans back down over my calf and taking my face in his hands. His cold skin should have felt good against the heat but didn't. "I'm sorry," he said. "Bella, I'm sorry. I'm sorry!"

For the second time that day, I tried to tell him that it was all right. But it wasn't all right. I tried to touch his face, his fingers, but my movements were too jerky. I tried to stop making the sounds I was making. I could see him flinch with each one. I forced my teeth closed, pulled my lips shut over them. But I couldn't stop making those sounds.

The burning intensified. This wasn't the same. Back in Phoenix, I'd felt as if my arm were on fire, but this time the flames were made of liquid, sliding and sucking and sticking to my insides. Maybe it was that James hadn't been trying to turn me. Maybe it was that he'd only bitten my hand and not my neck. Maybe Edward's venom was stronger. Maybe—

I heard my voice echo against the stone walls as the thick pain in my neck ate its way down my body. I clapped one blazing palm to my chest. Intellectually, I knew exactly what was going on. Edward's venom was creeping down through my veins to my heart. But intellectual me wasn't holding the reins. Emotional me had shoved her out of the saddle, and she was chanting fear, fear, fear of what would happen when the venom started pumping through every cell in my body.

It was all so goddamned _slow_.

"Bella?" I could barely hear Edward's voice. His perfect, velvet-soft voice. He was holding me, his cool arms lifting my back off the tiles. I blinked hard and saw Alice, stricken and still, one hand just barely touching my right shoe.

"This is not what I wanted for you," the voice breathed into my ears. "This is not what I wanted. I am so sorry, Bella." The room was starting to fade. For a second, I dared to hope that I was blacking out, but the fire scorching my insides was as clear and sharp as ever. It was burning everything else out of my sight, out of my memory.

There were more voices, some soft and some shouting. I didn't listen. I had to concentrate on something steady or else I would fly completely apart. From this angle, I could see the corner of Edward's jaw as he spoke, but there was a haze drifting down over everything. I fought it back, but I didn't know how long I could keep it up. I just watched his mouth move as he said things I couldn't make out to people I didn't remember.

There was a flow of air against the tiny hairs on my skin as his hold on me shifted and he stood up. Why wouldn't he put me down and back away? I was on fire, and fire could kill him. I didn't want him to die with me. Why didn't he put me down?

Alice was speaking. Alice was telling Edward something, insisting it. And then we were moving. I found myself staring upward through the haze as the ceiling of the little stone hallway rushed past me.

My eyes were still open, but I didn't understand all of what I was seeing. There were sneakers and cameras and a hundred strange, confused human faces. Some of them turned to stare and I could see they were afraid. I was an ember. I was burning to a cinder while they watched.

There was another sound, and I forced my eyes to focus on a new person standing in front of me. I saw a small figure with a rosary around her neck. I couldn't make out the details, but she moved carefully, like an old woman. She seemed worried and confused and she said something that I couldn't make out, but from her posture and the tilt of her wide, frightened eyes, I was sure she was asking if I was all right. Edward murmured something in response, and she reached out one cool hand to my wrist, gripping hard, as if she could anchor me with flesh and bone.

There was another voice, sweet and silky and awful. The old woman turned her head and followed.

Edward's face seemed hard, his eyes strangely empty as he watched her go.

I was sure that something important had just happened. I felt like the pain, the woman, the look in Edward's eyes was a warning, and that I would be able to avoid disaster if only I could make myself figure it all out. But the burning filled my brain and heart and bones and fingernails and the clues all floated like dislocated limbs in my blurring vision.

The feeling didn't last. When the screaming started, I knew it was too late.

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Because this chapter was posted ahead of schedule, it seems like a good place to mention something: CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS NOT RUDE!! ...unless the way you give it is rude, but inherently? Not rude. Go ahead and tell me that I've got a typo on my face, a continuity error trailing my shoe or a less-than-awesome shift in tone stuck between my teeth. I might not go back and change it (especially if you're reading this in 2011 or later; hey, it happens) but you will still not get the jerk treatment.

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	3. Ch 2 Character

_Twilight_ is the intellectual property of Stephanie Meyer and her chosen publishers. I have composed this fanfiction myself.

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_"I am surprised by how it ...pleases me, his success in this unorthodox path he's chosen. I expected that he would waste, weaken with time. I'd scoffed at his plan to find others who would share his peculiar vision. Yet, somehow, I'm happy to be wrong." _– Aro, _New Moon_

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The sounds coming from her throat weren't words. The ones coming from me barely qualified. I rocked back and forth, murmuring nonsense, her name, anything as I held her still-warm body against me.

I tried to take her all in. She'd changed over the past year. Her cheeks were thinner. There was a scar near her hairline that hadn't been there before. She was wearing the same shirt she'd had on the day they'd done blood typing and I'd carried her outside. Her eyes were a wild mix of pain and fear and other things buried underneath. I had never wanted so badly to know for sure what she was thinking, even knowing that there was no way that she could not blame me for her current pain. These were my Bella's last moments. Even if she remembered being human at all, the memories would be dulled. Had she forgiven me for all I'd done to her? Did any part of her love me still?

While Bella remained agonizingly silent, the thoughts of the other vampires in the room beat against my mind like rain against a rock, pounding away at me without leaving a mark. How long, how many centuries before they wore me smooth?

_My God, he actually did it. I'd wondered what Master had in mind, setting up a botched turning right before the feast._

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...flinched at the thought of mating her. At least we're not bringing a pervert into the ranks._

_Smells fucking sweet. Alec or Demetri I could understand; they've earned a treat, but better to toss her round and give us each a taste than let this stripling freak have it all._

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Can we just get the theatrics over with so we can eat? What is keeping Heidi?_

_...wasn't the human why he wanted to die in the first place? _Distracted as I was, I nearly started at the clarity of the thought. Demetri... _What does Aro want with either of them? They're both trouble._

_Skinny little scrap of a thing_, thought one of the one of the women to Demetri's right. She remembered me making my request to the elders this morning. At the time, she'd supposed that my human plaything must have been a great beauty. Through her mind's eye, I could see that Bella was plain and disheveled, sniveling like a drowned rat. And I was a fool, a strange, mad boy petting some wretched, dirty creature that had followed him home.

Yes, I was a fool, I thought, hands stroking uselessly down Bella's arms. Her eyes stayed focused on me, but there was no way to tell how much she was really seeing. Rosalie had stayed conscious the whole time, but Emmett had gone in and out. They'd both begged us to let them die...

_Edward._

She would never say my name in her sleep again. I would never lie perfectly still beside her waiting for the rush of warmth when I heard it. I'd never wonder at the sunlight against her human skin or find out what she'd be like as a girl of nineteen or a woman of twenty-nine. It was all over.

_Oh_ _Edward..._

I shook my head.

"Edward," Alice said out loud.

I looked up. My sister had one hand on Bella's shoe, as if she were afraid to touch any more of her. The gesture seemed too close, too intimate, but I couldn't tell her to stop, not with her neck bowed toward the floor and her shoulders shaking in time with Bella's cries.

_You have to focus_, she told me through the scattered rain of her own thoughts.

I stared back at her, not comprehending. Bella gave a lurch in my arms and I looked down again.

_Edward_, Alice thought firmly, and I began to understand. The storm of thoughts in the room was affecting her as well. There were too many decisions being made and unmade as they watched our grotesque little scene. Her visions were changing, flickering like a strobe light on overload, and for one brief moment I shared them. Aro stood with Alice at his right hand and me at his left, Bella and a fourth vampire whom I did not recognize behind. There was something about the sight that reminded me of a pyramid with a square base, complete and stable, strong enough to weather the centuries. The vision shifted and I saw Jasper. He was somewhere far away and all alone.

My lips parted. I closed them again. I was sinking. I was sinking down into the earth. I tightened my grip on Bella's arm, rubbing her sleeve with my thumb. How many lives had I ruined by coming here?

"Amazing..." Aro all but clapped his hands together. "Such control. My dear ones, we are all blessed to have witnessed such a feat. Young Edward, you truly are your father's son, though I doubt even he could have done as you did."

I opened my mouth to answer just as Bella gave a stifled thrash in my arms. The tiny sound echoed in all the emptiness inside me, tearing me just as if it had come from my own throat. Her body had only started to change and it felt as if her soul were already fighting its way out, when a minute ago she'd been human and healthy and strong.

No, Carlisle could not have done it.

I let myself see through Aro's eyes. Through the prism of his curiosity, I was a rare thing, a precious thing: a vampire with a truly disciplined mind, the best he'd found since Demetri. Bella was a gnarled oyster that might be hiding a pearl or only sand, but he would pry her open just to be sure. Oh but Alice. Dear Alice. Alice was unique in all the world. Alice eclipsed us both. With Alice, it was as if the last piece of some confounding puzzle had turned up years after being given up for lost.

Aro saw me watching. To my surprise, I found that he liked that I could read him. Like a toddler learning to use a lightswitch, he was fascinated with the prospect of a follower who could do his will without a word. When he wondered if it would work on Alice, I couldn't help but turn my eyes toward her.

_What is it, Edward?_ Alice asked me. _What's he doing? _ I gently tensed the muscles in my shoulders, meaning that I would explain later. It was a code we'd worked out long ago.

Aro noticed this time. His lips spread in a delighted smile as he watched the interplay between Alice and me. A matched set, he thought, like Jane and Alec, already so in tune with each other. It had taken him, Caius and Marcus years to develop a similar rapport and here we were, ready-made.

So I waited. I watched the delighted amusement bloom in his mind as he realized what I was doing.

_Is that how this is going to work, then?_ His question was a little too clear. Aro's thoughts spelled out each word, like a luddite using a telephone or voice recorder for the first time.

I ducked my chin, so slightly that no one who didn't know what to look for would notice. Aro was curious and childlike, and I could guess that codes and secrets would appeal to him.

_How delightful_, he thought at me, _but it would look rather strange if you just got up and left the room, almost as if you were breaking your word and leaving us—_Beneath Aro's deliberate thoughts, I picked up the words "_after I showed you mercy_."—_and I suppose dear Jane or Felix might overreact to that._ Again, not deliberately, Aro thought of me shuddering under Jane's gift as Felix pulled the dregs of Bella's human blood from her body. _Besides, it's only fitting to say this part out loud, don't you think?_

"Well this is an unexpected joy, isn't it brothers?" Aro addressed Caius and Marcus. "Just hours ago, we debated the sad prospect of dispatching one of our number—" I noticed Felix's thoughts sour with disappointment. "—but instead we see our little family grow by leaps and bounds."

"Yes..." Caius agreed, but his skepticism was clear in his voice as he eyed Alice, Bella and me. Marcus was still watching with Off to my left, I heard Jane's mental snarl. She wasn't happy about having a new brother and sister, especially not ones that kept her master so interested. "But that's if she lives, brother," he finished.

"Oh I don't think we need to worry about that," said Aro. "Edward did quite a masterly job with dear Bella. Just listen to her heartbeat."

"Yes," Caius said pointedly, "that was rather what I meant." I stroked Bella's cheek with the backs of my fingers as Caius touched Aro's hand. "Heidi will be here with the feast any moment," he said as my mind filled with foreign images of an unfamiliar, pain-blinded human being ripped open by four vampires at once.

"Ah," Aro said quietly. "Yes, accidents do happen, don't they? Young Edward," he said to me in a louder voice, "perhaps you had best take our little Bella out of harm's way for the time being."

I nodded stiffly, gathering Bella in my arms as I rose to my feet.

"He's not going to stay and eat, Master?"

I turned, even though I already knew who'd interrupted.

"No Demetri," said Aro. " I think it might be better for Edward if he did not have to make too many changes at once, don't you?" I felt my shoulders go stiff.

"I see, Master," agreed Demetri. His thoughts were thick with suspicion, and not only of me. He was still wondering what Aro wanted with Bella and me. Demetri was proud of what he did, I saw, and the idea that someone would have to be forced to join the Volturi offended him. He didn't want to believe it.

_Wait for us below,_ Aro told me. _When the feast is over, you and I will discuss your duties further._ His thoughts were like a soft cloth wrapped around a knife.

"Wait," Aro called. I stopped. I kept my expression as mild as I could as Aro motioned Felix forward. "We do not stand much on ceremony here," he said as he unfastened Felix's gray cloak, "but take this."

_Welcome to the family, young Edward._

Aro stepped toward me and threw the garment around my shoulders, tying the cords below my throat. Bella was still moving fitfully in my arms, but she didn't seem to get in Aro's way. He stepped back, admiring his handiwork. "It suits you," he said with a smile.

I managed to stretch my lips in return. We were being watched, after all.

"Master," Demetri said in a low voice as I turned to leave. In my mind's eye, I could see Demetri cock his head toward us. "Do you want me to keep an eye on him?" he asked. _Easier to keep him from running off now than to track him later. No sense making more work for myself_... he thought.

"I don't think that will be necessary," I heard the answer as Alice and I made for the high double doors. It wasn't as if I was going to run away, Aro knew, not with Bella in such a state. The Saint Marcus's Day festival was hardly Mardi Gras. A man carrying a moaning, semiconscious teenaged girl would attract the attention of the police ...and a vampire using his abilities to avoid them would bring down the wrath of the Volturi.

I looked down at Bella as I turned to go. He'd seen the depth of my connection to her in my own mind and in Marcus's gift, and that the events of the past two days had put me far past risking her safety. She was my heart, Aro knew, and she anchored me to Volterra more surely than an iron chain.

Alice's hand on my elbow brought me back to myself. I could sense her apprehension as we passed through the high double doors. As soon as they closed behind us, we broke into a run.

"Not fast enough..." I heard her mutter.

The crowd reached us before we reached the vestibule, a gaggling throng of humans led by one vampire—Heidi. She turned to watch us, her eyes seeming eerie and detached through the scratched haze of her tinted lenses, but most of her concentration was on herding the sheep, who had only started to figure out that they weren't headed back to the meadow. Some of them stopped to look at us as we passed. One woman even stepped out of the crowd, taking three steps toward us as Heidi looked back in surprised annoyance. I couldn't understand her words, but I could read the meaning behind them: her own fear was breaking on the concern she felt for this young stranger.

Heidi called the woman back and I could hear the power in her voice and see it in her smile. Alice touched my arm. I did nothing.

This was the truth that Bella had never understood. Demetri and Caius and Laurent looked at Carlisle and me as if we were freaks and deviants _because we were_. Vampires were predators and murderers who loved the hunt or loved the kill and covens like our family existed because the rest of our kind permitted it. I watched Heidi's catch file obediently past me toward the end and I did not move one finger. It wasn't that I could do nothing; it was that it was my duty to do nothing.

More than killing prey, being a vampire meant killing your own compassion. I felt Bella's body go tense as the sounds of the Volturi's own Saint Marcus's Day celebration began behind us. I ran faster and I didn't even have to tell Alice to keep up.

We found our way back to the decorated reception area without incident and Alice practically dragged me toward one of the couches beside the wall where she immediately collapsed against me, embracing Bella tightly around the waist.

"Careful," I breathed in surprise.

"Oh Edward, I can't h-help it!" Alice's breath hitched. She remembered the blackness in her memory where her human life should have been. _What if she doesn't know me?_

"She'll know you," I promised. "You're unforgettable."

I squeezed Bella's hand, hoping she would squeeze back or look at me but the pain had made her vague. Her eyes were pointed at me, but the rest of her face was taut and unreadable. Alice squirmed into an upright position and took Bella's other hand. Bella seemed less focused now and her cries seemed quieter, though that might have been that we were in a room with rugs and upholstery instead of hard stone. I pressed my lips against her hair, closing my eyes against her human scent.

"How long do we have?" I whispered against Bella's skin.

"Just under an hour," Alice spoke as if the words gummed the back of her throat. "They like to linger."

I kissed the end of Bella's nose. I wanted her lips. I wanted to feel her softness against me one last time, but I'd long since lost the right.

_Why is he wearing Felix's cloak?_ I looked up to see the young human receptionist watching us. Her thoughts were quizzical but her expression was blank as she gracefully stepped clear of her counter and came closer.

_That_ was what she noticed? Not the girl moaning in pain or the agony on Alice's face or the gruesomeness walking past her in Heidi's wake. She noticed that I was wearing Felix's clothes.

I suddenly burned with hatred. A woman who could watch innocent people led to their deaths without batting an eye was permitted to keep her soul and her heartbeat while Bella shook with every breath. This shriveled harpy had a better chance at... I glared at Gianna, and I had to give her credit in that she did not shy away.

"Can I do anything for you?" she asked professionally.

I wanted to tell her to take a good look at Bella's sufferings and what they meant for her plans. I wanted to tell her that Aro had never, never turned a human servant and had no intention of turning her, that all the horrible things she'd done would buy her nothing.

I held Bella in my arms and kissed her hair, the top of her head, her nose, her fingers. Alice and I were trapped in Volterra. We were now the pride of Aro's morbid collection, sealing the present and the future to his will.

Now that the churning minds of the Volturi guard were otherwise occupied, Alice's vision came through clear. The Volturi would grow stronger. In our own coven, years would pass and Jasper would become more and more distant, eventually leaving on his own journey of self-destruction. Without a scout for the future, thoughts or moods of their human neighbors, Carlisle, Esme, Rose and Emmett's lives would turn dark and furtive.

Alice looked meaningfully at me. I looked back. I knew what I had to do. It was only...

I took a deep breath and worked my arms under Bella's leg, ready to lift her up. Alice's vision changed again. It was shorter this time, I noted, watching Demetri and four others drag the three of us back before we even reached Rome.

Aro knew me as well as I knew myself. He knew every choice I'd ever made and it was well within his intellect to predict what I would do next. He thought he already had. I had watched him come to the conclusion. He had made only two mistakes this afternoon, perhaps in his entire life, and, so far, I hadn't been able to put them to work for us.

"Edward, please..." Alice said softly.

To fool Aro, I would have to do something very, very out of character.

"Yes, Gianna," I said. "There is something you can do for me."

"Of course, sir," she said calmly.

I placed a kiss on Bella's forehead.

I was trapped in Volterra, Alice saw. I was the new addition to Aro's morbid collection, sealing the present to his will. And he was angry with me for helping my other half get away. But I had done some fast talking and he couldn't send Demetri after her or Carlisle, not without showing more of his own character than he wished to reveal.

"Look after the young lady," I told Gianna as got to my feet. "I have to go."

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	4. Ch 3 Connected

_Twilight_ and _New Moon_ are the invention of Stephanie Meyer.

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_"You know her, Jacob. You connect with her on a level that I don't even understand. You are part of her, and she is part of you."_ –Edward, _Breaking Dawn_

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"Alice?"

"We have to go now."

I nodded to the left and we both started running.

We weren't going to get out the way we'd come in. Alice and I made a beeline for the exit I'd seen in Demetri's mind—the _real_ exit. The Volturi compound was a maze. The outer sections were designed to leave human visitors with the impression that there was nothing to see while herding them away from the more incriminating parts of the building. The inner sections, where we were now, were designed to keep human visitors in.

The entire lobby was a prop, like Esme's kitchen or Rosalie's schoolbooks. It gave the impression that there was an outlet to the street nearby, but there was only a corridor leading back toward the feasting hall. Alice couldn't read my mind, but she had fifty years experience reading my body language. We ducked left toward the stairwell. Alice followed my gaze and yanked the door open without breaking stride.

I could still feel her skin against my lips. I could still taste the cold sweat there. My heart clenched bitterly. I should have told Gianna just what I'd do to her if anything happened to Bella. I should have held Bella's hand for one more second. I should have put my lips to her ear and told her that _I was coming back_—

"Edward!" Alice hissed. I forced my thoughts back into line. I couldn't think about Bella, not now, not if I was going to be any use at all. I pushed it to the back of my mind an let it smolder, then followed Alice through the stairwell.

Half a floor down, we reached what looked like a fire exit. I'd barely brushed my fingers against the bar before Alice's hand pulled mine back, her thoughts quick to follow. An alarm, Demetri sent away from the feast to investigate, interrupting our escape. The exit was a decoy.

I'd nearly ruined things in the first two minutes. I should have been paying more attention. I should have spent every second of our trip here picking our escort's brains. I should have had three escape plans ready before we even reached the lobby.

_Edward, we really don't have time for this. You aren't perfect. You get distracted._

I shook my head. She was right. I searched my stolen memories. It had seemed so clear in Demetri's memory, a door nearby. I looked along the walls, seeing the answer right away. To my sharp eyes, the real door's outline was perfectly apparent, but it was placed and painted in such a way as to discourage notice by casual viewers. A human running in panic would go for the alarm trigger long before finding the real way out.

I grasped the hidden handle and stepped out into the thick shadow of an alleyway that served as the daytime exit to the street.

Alice followed me, and I stared up at the wall behind us. The compound took up the better part of a city block. From the outside, it looked like several different buildings, only connected underneath. A few dozen people didn't need all that much space, especially if they never slept, but even monsters liked a few amenities.

It had felt like Jane and Demetri had taken us a long way through the tunnels, but Volterra was a small town, scarcely covering a hundred square miles. We were still within blocks of the Piazza dei Priori.

It was amazing what a few vampires could do with unlimited time and a few seats on the city planning board: It couldn't have been much past two in the afternoon, but the close-set buildings protected us. From here there were five paths out of the city. Two went underground. Three kept to the surface. I'd seen that they were meant for use at different times of year, different times of day, but I hadn't learned enough to tell which was which. The March sun was pale but the sky was clear. There would be no clouds to make the light forgiving.

On any other day, we'd have stolen a car, rubbed dust into the windshield, and slipped away from the city camouflaged in daily traffic. This morning, Alice had barely been able to get Bella to the Piazza before the roadblocks and burgeoning human barriers had forced her to abandon the car. Now, the crowds had only grown thicker. We would have to get as far as we could on foot.

Now for the hard part. Demetri, Felix and Jane hadn't spent much time thinking about the surface paths. I'd had to catch bits and pieces stuck onto other thoughts. This was where Alice came in. Triggering my sister's gift on purpose was tricky. Emmett had never mastered it, and even Carlisle was hit and miss, but I was almost as good as Jasper.

I started walking west, my mind completely focused on the path ahead.

Alice saw us ducking safely past the festivalgoers until a block past the Cattedralle. Then a newly vacant construction site broke our shield, forcing us to turn back, lose precious time, get overtaken by Rolfe and Felix just as she was hotwiring the hatchback— I stepped south, again putting the force of my will behind the decision. She saw us moving fitfully, breaking into a true run whenever my own gift told us it was possible to dodge watchful eyes. South it was.

I rubbed the fibers of Felix's robe between my fingers. Whatever this stuff was, it was seemed to pull the light into it, muffling any reflections like a pillow over the mouth of a trumpet. I motioned for Alice to walk on my left side, deeper in the shadows as we set out at a maddeningly slow human pace. Now for my end of it. As we moved out of the alleyway and onto the shadowed side of the street, I kept my mind turned outward into the crowd. There were still a few latecomers headed to the Piazza, but they were moving in the opposite direction, and the street wasn't long enough for anyone to keep us in view for more than a few moments. We could run at what would have been a human's top speed and not gain more than a little notice. A young girl in a gray dress paused to wonder where we were headed in such a hurry, but not long enough to cause me any concern.

Marcus hadn't been obvious in his city planning. The buildings were close together here, shadowing a greater fraction of the street. There were only a few windows facing out in our direction, and they were mostly stairwells and hallways, not places where people would congregate or linger. They really had thought of everything.

The shadowy path cut to the left in front of us. We would turn east to avoid the park, hugging the north side of the street for two blocks. Then, we'd duck across the street to another string of alleys. After three blocks, or... I grit my teeth together. Three? Looking back, the flashes of streets I'd seen in Jane's memory were all starting to look the same. I should have been paying closer attention. I should have been, but I'd had _her _in my arms and she'd been warm and frightened and alive and that last fact had filled all the universe.

Alice squeezed my arm again. I tried to shake it off. It was too late for Bella. What was left of my family needed me more.

We turned. The chorus of thoughts and noise form the Piazza was a slowly diminishing roar behind us. It was almost comforting to know that most of the city's attention was elsewhere. There were plenty of people still at work or stuck at home, but our street was speckled with stragglers, some in cloaks like mine, some in costumes from other versions of vampire lore. Only a few of them paid us any real notice, but it meant we had to walk at a human pace.

The slowness was driving me mad. Behind us, I knew, the Volturi had finished off the first course, the loudest and most troublesome prey. Then Caius would take his time parceling out the sweetest blood to vampires who'd served him well. Felix had been looking forward to it. His thoughts had lingered on a previous feast, a young German girl who'd smelled like— I couldn't think of it. I stared at the road.

In the distance, I could see a lone building, taller than the rest. Its shadow stretched all the way across the narrow street exactly—I counted—three blocks ahead.

"My complements to Marcus," I murmured, pushing away from .

"Hm?" Alice asked, eyes pointed straight ahead.

"Marcus is the one who takes care of all their public works," I said conversationally. "Renovates parts of the compound to keep them all camouflaged. Designs new buildings and safehouses. This morning, he was thinking about replacing the east wing."

"Ah," she answered.

"I got the impression that Marcus is more attached to the city itself than Caius or Aro," I went on. It seemed to help, as if my agitation were escaping through my mouth into the air. "But it might just be that he took up architecture as his personal hobby sometime during the Roman Republic."

_Mom would have loved hearing about this_, thought Alice.

"I know." I said, picturing Esme's face. Volterra was a marvel. Carlisle's stories had never fully done it justice.

A cluster of partygoers in vampire dress was moving down the street, thoughts full of the party in the square. To them, the shadow reaching across the road was nothing at all. They paused in the middle of Alice's and my walkway as one of them turned on the spot to tell the others a joke. I had to force myself not to glare, itching as badly as I ever had behind a slow driver in the leftmost lane. We'd stopped in the middle of the sidewalk for what looked to all the world like no earthly reason.

_They're going to look_, Alice warned me. With a hard-earned ease that came from no fewer than eight different high school cafeterias, I formed my face into a smile and reached out to mess up Alice's hair. She gave a genuine yelp of protest and I heard a laugh from the human teenagers in the street. They began to walk toward the Piazza again, but just for good measure, I grabbed Alice around the waist and picked her up as she kicked her feet in the air and I scouted the humans' minds. They saw exactly what I'd wanted: a happy brother and sister with no deadline but curfew. They didn't even notice that we were headed away from the party.

The humans moved away, I set her down again, hugging her much more tightly than I needed to.

And then no one was looking. No one at all. I grabbed Alice by the hand. She didn't have to wait to see me nod. We ran full-tilt across the street and through the alleys. The city's skyline rose and fell on either side of me. We covered a decent stretch before a flash from Alice's mind had me skidding to a natural pace. Alice gave me a warning look and held the image firmly in her thoughts: me before Aro, facing punishment for being seen.

I looked up at the buildings around us, listening until I heard the thoughts of a woman wiping spots off her office window. I tilted my head in her direction. "There?" I asked Alice. She nodded, and the vision evaporated as one future died.

We walked no faster than two human beings in a desperate hurry. The rest of the way we managed in stops and starts and infuriating slow gaps, breaking into a run when I sensed the way was clear, stopping when Alice sensed it wasn't. It felt like hours.

It couldn't have been ten minutes.

"Here?" I said quietly.

_Here_.

Alice looked around, head turning left and right. The road out of the city was only a few streets away, still blocked and guarded. The officers were still under orders to turn lone cars back, but there was a parking lot outside the gate, and a faltering stream of tourists coming up the hill on foot.

By now, the sun was in the northwest. Volterra itself cast a shadow, albeit a short one. I looked at Alice, but nothing said we'd fail. Just to be safe, I threw the edge of my gray cloak around her and we walked together, almost hobbled by her short steps, past the guard, out of the city proper, and down the path toward the waiting escape.

_That one_. Alice pointed at the string of cars parked alongside the residential street. Many Volterrans had invited renters or relatives into the city ahead of time, and every legal and illegal space was full. I didn't look at any of the license plates, which were mercifully hidden by the tight parallel parking. It was bad enough that I would know the make and model of whatever Alice was taking out of the city. Alice hurried toward a dented dark blue sedan. _It's unlocked and the owner's going to get _very _drunk tonight_, she thought, yanking open the door. _No one will notice it's gone for a day and a half._ A fleeting memory danced through her mind—her sweet yellow Porsche, the damage that she'd done hotwiring that work of art, Bella gnawing her fingertips in the front seat as the clock blinked mercilessly toward noon, Alice, just as agonized but not at liberty to show it. Alice was more in tune with me than with any other member of our family except Jasper. That gave her visions of me more depth and clarity. The whole way here, she'd seen me torn apart and burned alive, over and over, with no way to close her eyes against the sight.

"I'm sorry," I breathed, looking away.

Alice stopped. _It's not your fault_, she thought. We both knew it was.

Her fingers ducked beneath the steering wheel. I put my hand on her shoulder. "Let me," I said. Rosalie was the master mechanic of the family, but I was pretty good.

"Edward..." she trailed off. I ignored her, and the engine roared to life. Now to ride with her as far as the city limits, read any guards, tell her which lie to tell—

_No._

I'd slip out of the car as soon as it was safe, turn back on foot—

_Do I need to tell you what happens if you don't make it back in time?_

She didn't, but the visions came anyway. I closed my eyes against the onslaught, fingers denting the edge of the car door as I tried to hold myself steady. I returned to the compound after Demetri had already left. He brought Alice back an hour later. _You have to get back to her before anyone thinks we're gone, Edward, and you won't be able to move as fast as we did on the way out._

I didn't want to answer. I hated that I didn't have to.

This was the end for me. Alice would have to go on alone. Accepting it was like turning my own heart to soot.

I watched her jaw move slightly as she ground her teeth, finally meeting my eyes. I didn't flinch away as she threw her arms around me. I hugged her back. Alice, my sister Alice... When would I ever see her again?

"Thank you," she said, eyes like all the ocean in their sadness. "Thank you for helping me save Jasper."

"Tell them I'm sorry," I said.

She nodded against my shoulder.

_What am I going to do?_ she thought. _God, Edward, what am I going to do without you?_

Why was it these moments, I thought. Why did it take something like this for us to realize what we really meant to each other? Jasper was the love of Alice's life, but I connected with her on a level that he couldn't even understand. He would always know how she felt about her visions, but he couldn't share their weight the way I did, work in concert with her like he was made to her measure. He didn't know what it was like to see things that he didn't want to see and be responsible for whether or not they came to pass. Alice could remember being alone, and she didn't want to be.

"You won't be alone," I promised. "You're going to find that you can do this without me." She pulled back and stared at me with doubting gold eyes. "I'm sorry that you'll have to," I said, "but I know you can do it. You've scouted without me before."

"It's not just that," she said. _And you know it. The things I _see_, Edward._

"You'll be all right." And God how I hoped it was true. Alice played the pixie but her years with Carlisle, Jasper and me had made the fissures in her fractured mind knit strong. It wouldn't be easy. She'd suffer more than she would if I were there, but she could pull it off. She could hold it all together.

I could see what I'd looked like to her, this past hour. There was a blackness behind my eyes that had nothing to do with food or thirst. It went straight to my bones. She'd seen it before, and she didn't like that it was back. Today, I had been her same dark purposeful brother whose joyless strength and cold insight had been her family's quiet weapon these past fifty years. Today, I'd been that boy who could stare for decades at the world and see nothing beautiful, not unless his smiling sister made him look.

After I'd met Bella, I'd needed Alice less, but she'd only been happy for me. I blinked back tears that would never be there. How did I manage to surround myself with noble, selfless women? How did I manage to fail them, again and again?

"I couldn't have asked for a better sister," I said, squeezing her back. "I love you so much."

_But not enough to stay alive._ Alice pressed her eyes shut. _I'm sorry, Edward. I don't mean it._

"You do mean it and you're right to. I deserve it."

She pulled away. "God help me, Edward, but if you spend the next thousand years telling yourself that you deserve to be ground beneath Aro's feet, I will come and burn you myself."

I wanted to argue. I wanted to demand to know what she meant. I wanted to jump in the car with her and go home. I wanted her to come back and stay with me through whatever was coming. I wanted none of this to have happened in the first place.

I closed my eyes. We couldn't linger. I had to accept what had happened and come through it as best I could. This time, that meant going back and facing Aro, and letting my sister go.

She slipped into the driver's seat and I closed the door behind her, feeling the lock snap shut.

The intensity of the vision nearly felled us both.

"Edward..." Alice breathed out loud.

_My brother is lying on his side. His clothes are strange, not like the ones I choose for him. His arms lie limp in front of him, like a tiger sleeping off its last kill, too heavy to lick its claws clean. His head is propped up on something._

_ A smooth, white finger brushes his hair off of his face, but he flinches back and the hand draws away. Something about him contracts, splinters, twists into a new shape. The tiger has broken its last fang on the bars of its cage. It shrinks down until the cage seems big enough to be the world._

_ My brother's eyes open—_

"No!" I shouted, hearing metal squeal and tear as I staggered back. I drew in ragged breaths that couldn't comfort me. I shook my head. No.

"It could be nothing," she said, too quickly. "Everyone lapses. It could be a lapse, that's all. It might not even happen—"

"Go," I whispered, stepping away from the car.

"Edward," she said, her voice shaking, "it doesn't have to happen—"

"Just go!" I shouted.

The last I saw of my sister's face, she was full of fear, of me, for me; they were both the same now. She pulled the sedan out of the parking space and drove away, her thoughts like a thousand sparrows flying in different directions.

Alice was gone. Alice was gone, and I didn't know if it was going to be all right.

I looked down at my hands and found six inches of blue metal in my grip. Part of the window frame. I looked up, still dazed. Alice would have to ride away with the window open. My feet moved of their own will, my eyes barely seeing the path in front of me. I twisted the piece of Alice's escape in my hands, rubbing coin-sized flakes away with my thumbs, remembering to kill the evidence, forgetting to kill the fear inside me.

Alice's last gift still shivered in my mind. The edges blurred into an uncertain mist, but the focus of the vision stayed mercilessly clear.

My face, pale in the gray light.

My eyes an evil red.

I pulled in a breath and pushed it back out again, backing deeper into the shadows as if I could back away from what I'd seen. I breathed again, drawing in the taste of the city to flood my mind. I separated its scents and counted them, like a woman carding wool fibers: Pavement. Exhaust. Humans. Pigeons. Rats. Rock. I pushed the vision away.

My work wasn't done yet.

I barely felt my legs move, one foot in front of the other as I turned toward the center of the city. From here, Volterra seemed to loom, modern, medieval and ancient silhouettes blurring together into one jagged chimera waiting for its next meal.

I drew a last deep breath, took stock of the shadows, and began walking steadily down its throat.

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Sorry for the half-measures earlier. I had ended this chapter with Alice's vision of Edward, but then it became apparent that Edward's journey back to the Volturi compound wouldn't quite jive with the next chapter. Then that didn't work either... So here we are.

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	5. Ch 4 Spared

_Twilight_, _New Moon_ and the characters Edward, Bella, Alice, Aro and Demetri are the invention of Stephanie Meyer.

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_"Even as I ran, gasping and screaming, I could appreciate that. And the last seven months meant nothing. And his words in the forest meant nothing. And it did not matter if he did not want me. I would never want anything but him, no matter how long I lived."_ – Bella, _New Moon_

Alice had been right. I couldn't move as quickly going in as we had coming out. The foot traffic was moving with me this time, but I had to be a thousand times more careful.

I paused by the tall shadow, waiting for a chance to cross to the other side. How had I ended up here? I was outside in all but broad daylight, surrounded by humans, trusting a scrap of a cloak and a few feet of sickly shade to keep me from the very, very near possibility of Aro's anger. Three days earlier, I'd been waiting out the sunlight in a motel room in Brazil, traveling by night alone, even though I was halfway across the world from him. I knew what had made me so foolish, but what had made me so brave?

But Aro would be angry even if things went perfectly. He didn't make mistakes often and even though monotony bored him, I doubted this was the sort of surprise he'd like. I still didn't know him well enough to more than guess at whether or not it would work.

I would need witnesses, vampire witnesses.

It was possible, barely possible, that Aro feared scandal more than he wanted my sister, so I had to put scandal between them. Even one member of the guard would do. Fortunately, Aro wasn't the type to go anywhere unescorted, not even inside his own keep.

_What's he_ doing_?_

_Goddamned tourists..._

The thought startled me back into reality. A woman was watching me loll in the street, seemingly staring at nothing. I waited until her companions urged her off. I had to pull myself together. I didn't have Alice to keep me in line any more. I grit my teeth. I was a disciplined man. I could do it on my own.

The shadows were only slightly deeper now as I retraced Alice's and my steps. I found my feet moving faster and faster as I dodged curious eyes, but the end of each street seemed to take forever to reach me. Time was ticking away. By now at least some of the Volturi would have finished their meal and gone wandering about. I forced myself to think about what I would say to Aro—or to Caius, Marcus or Demetri directly, whoever they sent—just to fight the frustration. I rolled the plan over in my mind like a woodworker smoothing a piece on a lathe.

Even so, she found me.

Bella filled my thoughts as I moved, and this time I couldn't stop. My memory spared me no detail. I all but shivered remembering the perfect rightness of the feel of her in my arms beneath the clock tower, the trust in her eyes even as I steeled myself to take her life away. My imagination had not done her justice. I'd been a fool to fight it, and now we both would pay.

My few minutes of access to Alice's thoughts had given me the basics of the matter: Bella had come to Italy to save my life.

I knew better than to think that meant that her love for me hadn't melted away, just as I'd said it would. Alice had returned to Forks to find that Bella had survived my absence and built a new life. But Bella was simply not the sort of person to let someone come to harm when she could do anything to prevent it. Even if it was only right to leave me to my fate, she would have tried to help. I knew better than to think that meant she'd forgiven me. I closed my eyes, hearing my feet hit the ground as I ran. She couldn't forgive me, not for this. She was losing her chance at heaven because of me, losing her human future, losing Charlie, her mother, her friends...

It didn't matter. Dwelling on it wouldn't help, I thought as I ducked around a corner. _Nearly there_. I couldn't do anything about it now.

It was selfish of me, I realized as I sidestepped a trio of young men with plastic fangs, but I wanted every last moment of her for myself, to feel her lungs expand and contract until the last breath came, to have her eyes on me until the light behind them died. I would have to make this final taste of her last me an eternity. I would never try to end my own life again.

On a less pleasant level, I knew I also needed to make myself accept my actions. Her transformation was my doing, so it was only right that I be there. Every mark of pain on her face, every shake of her body was my just punishment for what I'd done. If that was all that I could give her, then I would give it. I would stay by Bella as Rosalie had stayed by Emmett and Carlisle by Esme and me. I'd be the voice through the change, even if it meant watching Bella's life slip away and taking responsibility for whatever rose in its place.

I finally made it into the alley. Not an hour earlier, I'd stood here with my sister, using her gift and mine to find her a safe way out of this hell. Now I needed to break back in. I ran my hand alone the wall. There didn't seem to be a latch. I fought down panic as I ghosted over the riveted steel. Did this door only open out? Why hadn't I propped it open with something? Why hadn't I checked? If I had to turn around looking for another way—

My fingers found a notch along the bottom edge, too small for any human intruder to gain proper leverage. I pulled and the door swung open. I leaped inside. Finally free from prying eyes, I ran, _really_ ran, like Rosalie had cracked out a line drive and Emmett _and_ Jasper were on base.

I went through my plans again as I took the stairs.

Aro would find me just as if I'd never been gone, with Alice's absence the only change. The appearance of innocence would add weight to my words. If Aro came himself, as I doubted he would, I'd put Bella down on the sofa and step in front of her. The less he saw of her, the less he'd associate her with what I'd done. But if Aro sent someone to fetch Alice and me, then there would be no help for it. I'd have to bring her along. There was too much human blood in her system, even if was right after a feast, and not even my venom burning away inside her could ruin that beautiful scent.

I had minutes, maybe. Alice had said we had an hour, but the eagerness I'd detected in Aro's thoughts could have led him to leave ceremony to Marcus and come looking for us as soon as his thirst was quenched.

I burst out of the stairwell and into the hallway, skidding to a stop so that I could pull open the double doors. The lobby was almost exactly as I'd left it, except that Gianna was sitting primly behind her desk instead of where I'd left her.

I took five steps toward the sofa before I accepted what I was seeing. I actually had to look around before my brain registered what my nose had already told me. Then a hundred icy spikes drove themselves into my rib cage.

Bella was no longer here.

My movements were as quick now as they'd been sluggish earlier. Before a fly could beat its wings, my palms were pressed against the top of the reception desk, my face not an inch from Gianna's.

"Where is the girl?" I demanded.

The woman looked back at me. "Would you repeat that, please, sir?" she said, as if I were a visiting client asking if he had arrived too early for an appointment and not a demon in a fury. I grit my teeth. This woman had spent years working for vampires a thousand times more fearsome than I was. Of course I didn't intimidate her.

I asked again, this time making certain that my voice was slow enough for her to understand. "The girl I asked you to look after," I repeated, pouring as much menace as I could into my voice. "Where is she now?"

The young woman paused, mouth open for half a second before speaking. It didn't matter. The words coming out of her mouth weren't the ones I wanted.

I'd used the technique many times. For most people, it was not possible to hear and understand a question without thinking about the answer. While the woman recited the rehearsed and meaningless runaround that she'd decided to give me, her thoughts went to what had really happened to Bella.

Gianna had not returned to her desk after Alice and I had left, perching just out of reach on the edge of the sofa as the girl's cries grew louder. I felt my stomach twist inside me as I realized that, through my whole conversation with Alice, Bella had been wide awake. She'd just spent all her energy trying not to scream.

Gianna hadn't known what was wrong, why the girl was sick. She'd wondered if that was why Bella had been so afraid when she'd first walked into the lobby. She wondered if Bella had known what was in store for her.

Miss Jane and Mr. Demetri had come in. Felix had not been with them. Gianna had repeated my explanation, just as I'd asked her. Demetri had twitched an eyebrow.

_"Thank you, Gianna, we'll take it from here,"_ Demetri had said as he picked Bella up off the couch and turned toward the south hallway.

"—the young lady to other quarters—"

"How long has it been since you've seen Demetri?" I interrupted.

The image in her mind wasn't two minutes old. I turned on my heel and ran.

Gianna didn't know the compound the way Demetri and Felix did. She never went wandering in the building and never put a toe outside reception on feeding days. That was probably why she was still alive. I stopped at the first corner, inhaling sharply. Bella's scent... The ventilation system was running full-blast today, probably because of the mess they were all making in the feasting hall. I closed my eyes and tried again.

I turned left, forcing down the searing cold fear inside me. There was still human blood in her body, what if—No, such a vampire would have eaten her on the spot, not taken her away. What if Aro had thought Alice and I had both run away? What would he do to Bella, then? One of Aro's reasons for having her turned was to use as leverage against me. What would he do if he thought he had no need of her? I remembered Jasper talking about how he'd disposed of newborns during the southern wars. What if they—

Three tall figures rounded the corner in front of me and I stopped. Completely.

The one to my left was Demetri. On my right was the dark-haired woman who'd thought Bella plain in the feasting hall. Between them was Aro.

Something back in my mind was telling me that it was terribly important that I walk right up to Aro, speak politely, keep my reserve. But my eyes fixed on Demetri. I couldn't have looked away if I'd wanted to. "Where is Bella?" I said simply. Demetri looked at Aro, but his thoughts were already moving the way I wanted them to.

Demetri's mind was like a bell. Even for a vampire's memories, the images were unusually clear. He and Jane had gone to the entrance hall to check on Alice and me, but he'd already known we were gone. On Aro's orders, he'd picked up Bella and carried her through the hallways and—

—handed her off to Felix, who would take her the rest of the way.

I realized with a wrenching feeling that Demetri didn't know where Felix had been ordered to take Bella. He'd been told not to ask.

"Where is she now?" I demanded, hearing the thread of panic in my voice. He had to know. He had to know more than I did, at least. And something was forming in Demetri's mind, an educated guess, the only place _to_ take a newborn, really. It was on the lower levels of the—

"Edward!" Aro broke my concentration. Like hunting dogs called to heel, Demetri's thoughts focused on the situation at hand the moment he heard his master's voice. If I could have thought of anything else, I'd have called it uncanny.

I wanted to look away but didn't. There was nothing indulgent in Aro's face. His thoughts were worse. He hadn't been pleased when Demetri had told him that Alice and I were gone, sure that we'd made a run for it. The fact that we seemed to be still here after all made even less sense.

"Aro—" I stopped. I had to get hold of myself. "Master," I said, trying to sound as if the word did not sting my mouth. "Master, where is Bella?" I didn't mean to sound like I was begging, but I did.

"Edward," Aro said, a veil of sternness over his usual exuberance, "it is most unwise to leave a newborn unsupervised. I thought you understood the danger in that."

"I am sorry," I said quietly. I watched Aro's mind, but he wasn't thinking about Bella. I could sense only that his plan for her had been set out ahead of time and set in motion. Now, he meant to concentrate on Alice and me.

"We are not off to a good start, young Edward," said Aro. "Imagine what I must have thought when Demetri told me that you were not waiting with Alice as I'd told you. And leaving Bella with only Gianna to watch over her!" he shook his head. "What am I to make of this?"

"I'm—I'm sorry," I said. It was true. "Where is she now?" I knew I'd already asked, but somehow I couldn't not ask again.

"Bella will be fine," Aro told me.

_I know your tricks, boy_, Aro thought. I realized that he'd been expecting my question, had decided in advance not to answer it. "There is no one in this house who wishes her harm." Here, Aro knew that he was deviating from the absolute truth, but it was close enough. There were a few of the Volturi who wouldn't mind seeing a newcomer burn but no one who was willing to break the law to see it. "You will see her soon."

My insides clenched. All I could think about was that "soon" didn't mean "now." I watched Aro's face, but I had no idea how this would play out. He only knew something had gone awry.

_He never would have left the human._ Aro mused. _She's his mate, as sure as if she were one of our kind. Marcus was certain of it._ His thoughts strayed to his own Sulpicia. _He would not have left her in harm's way_. I watched his calculations play out. He knew that his reasoning didn't add up. Vampires didn't change over time, not the way humans had, and even a human couldn't have changed this much over the short time since he'd touched me last.

_No,_ Aro thought with satisfaction, _the boy didn't change. He simply learned something new about himself in the time since I touched him last_.

...how much had he missed? How much did people learn, day after day and year after year? He was making mental notes to find some excuse to touch each of the guard more often, a few times a year should do the trick. After all, most of them weren't actively trying to defy him.

_Demetri said they'd gone out into the city, but clearly, it wasn't an attempt to run or else Edward wouldn't still be— _His thoughts went cold. _They couldn't have. No, there's no way._

"Edward, where is your sister?" asked Aro. But he already knew.

I knew that I'd planned out a hundred different things to say, but now I couldn't remember even one. "She ...left," I answered clumsily.

"East, Master," Demetri said quietly. "Moving fast, probably on the Giosuè Carducci headed for Florence."

Aro looked at Demetri, the tiniest of creases forming between his stony brows. I watched him wonder at the tracker's calm expression. He was reporting Alice's location as if it were a matter of only moderate importance, another product of Aro's unpredictable curiosity. This was not how Demetri spoke of his prey.

_Edward, you will answer my question_, thought Aro.

"She has gone home, Master," I forced out. Some of my self-possession returned to me and I went on, "She sends her apologies that she could not stay with us no longer, but there is urgent family business that needs her attention."

It only took a second for Aro to realize that by "family," I didn't mean the Volturi.

"She is on her way back to Carlisle," he repeated.

"Yes, Master."

He wanted to know what was going on. He wanted to know _right now_. His hand clapped down on my shoulder before I could even think of stopping him.

The look in his eyes changed in the time it would have taken a human to blink.

Aro had made two mistakes. The first was that he'd overestimated Alice's need for me. He hadn't thought that she would have been able to leave me or that would have been able to let her go.

The second mistake was the more important. The second was the one that would save us.

There was one way in which Aro's gift was not superior to my own: I could sample the thoughts of many people at once and he could not. Aro knew the minds of each member of his guard, but he didn't make a habit of going back and reliving the same events through different eyes. He did not know his followers as a crowd. Aro had said one thing, meant another, and no one had noticed. It had probably happened a thousand times.

Earlier, during the makeshift trial in the feasting hall, Aro had nodded his head to Jane. Jane had known very well that he'd meant for her to test her gift on Bella, but she'd gone after Alice instead. No one except for the three of us had realized that Jane was not being perfectly obedient.

Minutes later, Aro and Caius had me show my allegiance to the Volturi, addressing Caius as my master, obeying Aro's orders.

Aro had _meant_ for this to stand for both Alice and myself.

But no one but the two of us knew that.

Demetri had seen me take full punishment for my crimes. Felix had seen it. Every vampire in the room had seen it. Apart from Jane and Caius, no one in that room had even considered the idea that Aro would want more than one of Carlisle's freakish children. Most of them didn't even understand why he wanted me. Alice, as far as anyone else knew, was free to leave.

Aro stared back at me in amazement as my mind revealed how the greatest treasure of all the ages had slipped through his fingers.

Oh, if Alice'd stayed in the compound until the feast was over or if she'd only made it so far away that she could have been brought back quietly, then Aro might have found a way to correct himself, but dragging Alice back to Volterra now would require a major expedition. It would require trained trackers and warriors. It would require openly declaring Alice a criminal after her covenmate had already plead guilty to the crime.

I watched as Aro contemplated closing his hand and crushing my shoulder. Demetri and the dark-haired woman were watching Aro.

_Why is Master Aro so upset?_ wondered the dark-haired woman. _So the mad girl is gone. We're well rid of her._

_Something isn't right..._ Demetri realized. _I should ask him if he wants me to find the Cullen girl. Perhaps she was supposed to take a message back to her coven._ Demetri's mind settled. Yes, he was sure that was it, some message to Master Aro's friend Carlisle, something to smooth over the loss of his gifted son before Alice herself could tell another tale.

_Interesting..._ Aro was thinking, his thoughts as tight as clenching teeth. Beneath his anger, he was genuinely fascinated. He didn't usually see people's misconceptions take shape in real time.

_That's what I can do for you_, I thought deliberately. _I can take this problem and turn it to your advantage. You will never mistake the crowd again. Only let my sister be._

Aro looked back at me, his thoughts dark. He had thought of a hundred different ways to use me. The fact that I'd come up with one that he hadn't thought of and that it had come to me in the scanty hours since he'd read my thoughts last... It appealed to him. Strength and supernatural talent were one thing; they could be identified and sought out. Insight was harder to find. It was rarer and more valuable.

But then he thought of Alice.

He thought of calling for Jane. I watched as he read me and knew that I would take it, would accept it, would never make a sound or say one word against it.

"It seems—" Aro began out loud and then thought the better of it. _It seems that I have misjudged you, Edward Cullen_, Aro thought quietly. His tone was surprisingly level. Demetri and the woman eyed us but said nothing. _And I do not misjudge_.

_You have outmaneuvered me. You have found my weakness, if it can be called a weakness. I cannot do just as I please, not even when it would be for the good of all. Do not feel too accomplished._ His fingers tightened painfully on my arm._ My brothers and I have never made a secret of that._

Deep down, he knew it wasn't true on either count.

_This is the first time that anyone has ever managed to use it against me so effectively._

But this was true. And he did not like it.

"I want very much to be able to trust you, Edward," Aro said out loud. "And for that, I need you to be able to trust me." Here, the words and thoughts matched.

_I need you to trust that I mean what I say. I need you to trust that you cannot act against me without consequences._

The next wave of thoughts came all together, images, feelings, memories and words. Aro had planned to welcome me as a new member of the household, but he saw now that this would never do. I could be trained, though. Like a wild dog being tamed into a hound, I could come to trust him, serve him loyally, so long as I could trust that I would be punished and rewarded in due measure.

He would set limits and hold to them. He would not be cruel, at least not outwardly, but he had planned to be so very kind, to the point of tolerating my abnormality publicly, indulging me my diet of pigs and game the way he'd long ago indulged Carlisle. It would not be so easy for me.

Shivering inside, steady outside. That is how it would be between us.

In helping Alice escape, I had attacked Aro's wishes but protected his public purpose. I had not seemed to disobey him, so he would not seem to punish me. He would not send for Jane or pull my limbs or eyes from my body or take vengeance on my former coven. But I would feel it, his thoughts promised. Oh, I would feel it. I would regret what I'd done as keenly as he would regret the loss of Alice and all that she could have done for the Volturi.

Here, finally, the great wheel of Aro's mind returned to my question.

"As for our dear Bella..." Aro began. His eyes were focused on me but he was really speaking for the benefit of Demetri and the dark woman—first my witnesses, now his. _She will be well tended, but not by you, Edward Cullen_. _I had planned that you and dear Alice would share that duty_, he thought clearly, images of leaving me with Bella while he learned to exploit my sister's gift springing bitterly to his mind.

Aro dropped me and I hit the floor. I shook. I hadn't even realized that he'd lifted me off the ground.

"...I find I cannot spare you."

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	6. Ch 5 Enemy Territory

On this section in particular, I welcome your input not only on the style of writing but on the content itself. In contrast with most of my other fandoms (Inuyasha in particular; if Green Tea was elitism, then vive le snootypants!), I don't participate in any reputable _Twilight_ forum and as such have never discussed the mechanics of the Volturi at length with fellow writer-fans. Correspondingly, I've decided that IKMD will be different from my other stories: It will be, at least for a while, subject to change. Each chapter, rather than the story in its entirety, is at this time a work in progress. So if you have a take on how Marcus, Aro and Caius really divide the tasks of running the Volturi or an opinion on Bella's post-vampitude mindset, then I'd love to hear it. I might not work it into the story, but I'd love to hear it. I can be reached by email at ffnet, by private message at MMorg and I'm a frequent participant at the Bloodfued (url below), which is also where I post my first drafts.

As for the stuff I was working on while I should-ish have been working on this ...I hope you all liked _Marvel Zombies_. Yeah. That rating's going to change.

www . invisionfree13 . The_Bloodfeud / index . php ? act = idx

EDIT: Apologies to t wrecks, whose reviews keep getting cut off. I spotted a continuity flaw that I just had to fix and removed the chapter after t had already reviewed.

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"I can't hear anyone anywhere. The more familiar someone's... 'voice' is, the farther away I can hear them. But still, no more than a few miles. It's a little like being in a huge hall full of people, everyone talking at once. It's just a hum—a buzzing of voices in the background. Until I focus in on one voice, and then what they're thinking is clear." –Edward, _Twilight_

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I hadn't counted on this part.

Aro had chosen my punishment well. There was nothing, nothing that he could have done to me worse than this. If he'd called for Jane or had me torn to pieces, I would have felt less than I did now. Here I was, able-bodied and well, while someone I loved, someone for whom I was responsible was withheld from me, and me not knowing where she was or what Felix or God-knew-who was doing with her.

Absolutely not. It was impossible.

I scoured the thoughts of the vampires around us for news of Bella, even reached out into the city around us, to the slightly dimmer minds of humans. For the second time that day, I truly wished that I could hear Bella's mind. I would have been able to find her, pick the needle out of the haystack on my first try. Instead, I searched for her using every set of eyes I could find. Unfortunately, the few images of Bella that I saw in the eyes of the Volturi were all memories from earlier in the day, and usually not kind ones.

I noticed that Aro's hand was back on my shoulder, but if that was supposed to mean something, I couldn't remember what.

Next, I listened for Felix, the vampire who'd been with Bella last. I'd spent enough time around him over the past twenty-four hours to have a loose sense of his mental voice. I reached outward, listening for his tone of low, dominating thoughts. What a man like him might do to a helpless, transforming human...

_Enough, Edward_, thought Aro. _Felix will not harm Bella_.

I could see in Aro's thoughts that Felix had been told to use no more force than was necessary to protect himself and the coven. But there was harm and then there was _harm_.

I found Felix a block and a half away, in one of the older buildings. He was climbing the stairs toward the transit level. He was thinking about Heidi, something Heidi had said to him as he'd handed Bella off, and—

I focused on the image. Heidi had been standing next to a thick wall that looked like stone but was really steel. They'd been below ground. Felix was wondering why the Volturi still had these cells. They hadn't been necessary since Jane, and Jane had been here since—

I knew where she was. I knew where she was!

"Hold him," Aro was saying.

I barely registered Aro's quiet, pleased amazement, barely felt his chalky fingers slipping off my shoulder. I was halfway across the hall, dragged to a stop by the dark-haired woman while Demetri's arms lifted me off the floor, all before I even realized that I'd moved.

"Edward..." Aro said warningly.

I didn't bother telling him that it hadn't been intentional. He already knew. "Let me go to her," I said.

_Can I put him down now?_ Demetri considered asking the question out loud but thought the better of it.

Aro took a step closer, looking at me speculatively, but my focus was on more immediate matters. I twisted sharply in Demetri's grip, almost getting loose. Demetri was a better fighter than I was, but I could hit him when he wasn't expecting it. He struck back with a loud snarl.

"Don't be too hard on him, Demetri," said Aro. "He's not actually trying to escape. And his response is only natural, all things considered." He nodded and Demetri set me back on my feet. Aro clapped his hand on my shoulder just in time to watch Demetri react.

In my mind's eye, we both saw his thoughts sour as he figured out what Aro was talking about. His mind twisted in disgust, then smoothed. _No sense in making an issue of it. What's the point of curing him of his nonsense if she'll be one of us by week's end?_ A vampire obsessed with a human, as I had shown myself to be, was a fool in Demetri's eyes, a dangerous fool. It was his coven's duty to bring him to his senses. But if that human was to be turned, then the problem would be mitigated. Demetri wondered if there was any chance that some madness might pass to Bella through my venom. If so, would it not have been better to let Felix try, even with the risk that he would lose control and—

I hissed. Demetri stared at me.

I didn't care if Demetri thought I was damaged. I didn't care if he thought Felix would have had as good a chance of resisting Bella's blood as I had. He'd wished her dead. He'd wished another man's jaws at her throat, and he'd wished her dead.

"Fascinating," muttered Aro. He addressed Demetri, "It seems young Edward doesn't like the thought of Bella in harm," he said, "even if those thoughts are not his own."

I watched Demetri realize that I'd been reacting to thoughts that he'd hardly known he'd had, but I didn't care. Then I watched him realize that Aro could now read his mind without touching him, without the protocol of the guard, at any moment.

He didn't like that. Not. One. Bit.

Aro released my shoulder. Demetri looked at Aro and then at me and back. Aro was no longer the problem. Now I was.

But Demetri wasn't mine. Aro was.

"Let me go to her," I said again.

"No," Aro answered me. "No, Edward, and you know why not."

I searched through the compound again, found Heidi's thoughts. She was leaning back against the wall—no, the door of the cell. She wasn't thinking about Bella; she was ignoring the sounds...

Aro was smiling gently. "Edward, do you realize what you did just now?" he asked.

I'd found Bella. That was all. That was everything. Everything but being there with her.

_Focus, Edward_, I thought. Aro had meant something by that. I looked into his mind.

My stomach nearly dropped out of my body. This time, I was the one who'd been outmaneuvered.

He had chosen my punishment well, but not for the reasons I'd supposed. Aro knew every thought I'd ever had, but that only told him so much. He'd wanted to see the limits of my gift for himself, how far I could reach, how many voices I could comprehend at once, whether I could pick one or several individuals out of a group. I had just shown him, and he was not disappointed.

I hadn't had any memories of extracting information from enemy territory, so Aro had commissioned one. And I had delivered it like a master smith.

"Then you have what you want," I said carefully. "Let me go to her."

Aro looked to Demetri and the woman, our small audience, and then thought his answer. _I also want you to know that you cannot defy me unpunished, Edward_, he told me. _You did not embarrass me publicly; you took quite a care for that, so I will not publicly shame you. It would get you off to a bad start with your new brothers. I will never give you more or less than you merit through your actions. It is my hope, young Edward, that we never find outselves in this situation again._

I couldn't answer, not even in my thoughts.

"She will be well looked after," Aro said like a promise. "Her immunity to Jane presents a problem—" _if it persists past her change_, he thought, "—and that forces us to rely on more medieval methods." I must have gone tense because he snapped back, "Edward, you know perfectly well that I mean that _literally_. The barbarous practice of locking newborns in a steel room—or chaining them to the walls—is what we used to do before Jane joined us. Jane's gift has been invaluable in keeping newborns under control, even to the point at which we do not need to restrain them unduly."

I couldn't tell if he expected me feel better or not.

Aro took two smooth steps and his chalky hand was on my shoulder again. "I told you that Bella would be well tended," he said. I dimly noticed Demetri wondering at that. Aro hadn't said it out loud, of course. "I keep my promises, young Edward. _All_ of them."

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As horrific as it had been to see Bella's pain, it was worse _not_ to see it. My mind kept racing back to my own transformation, Rosalie's screams, Emmett's moaning, reimagining every last agony suffered by someone I loved as it burned her out of the world. Aro bore my agitation like a houndsman with a skittish new beast. I'd settle, he knew. He'd seen too many vampires in too many situations not to be confident. And he was right. I _would_ settle, because I would go to her, I resolved. But the hours ticked by and Aro did not change his mind. He had other plans for me.

Between missions, the Volturi guard had two main pursuits: One of them was gathering food. Aro supposed that my talents would be an asset with regard to rounding up prey without suspicion, but his knowledge of my inner self showed him that ordering me to bring in humans for the slaughter would not turn out well. He had decided not to set me to this task—for now. After a few decades, he supposed, once I'd grown used to proper ways of feeding, perhaps then he would send me and I would embrace my natural food source.

I held back a shudder. Surely he knew that this could never be.

_Never?_ Aro asked, holding an image in his mind.

It was one of my own memories from the late nineteen-twenties. There was an alley. There was a man.

_My friend Carlisle never fed with us, but you are not your father. You've shown yourself fully capable of pursuing human blood when you think it is the right thing to do,_ he explained.

_It was never right_, I thought.

The Volturi did not feed on criminals. As a rule, they sought out people who would not be missed or, if missed, not traced back to the area. Many criminals certainly fell into that category, but Heidi's gift for luring and herding people wasn't perfect. There was always some chance that someone would wander off or break loose. Volterra was too important to risk.

We were in the west hallway. We'd been wandering the compound for hours, and Aro's palm remained on my shoulder the entire time. To anyone watching, it might have seemed that I was leading him, preceding him into every space like an attendant to a blind man, but it was Aro who set the pace and called the shots, and everyone we passed knew it.

The guard's second task was collecting information. Not every act of indiscretion went reported, at least not by vampires. The Volturi had to stay on top of what was happening in our world, and a large part of that consisted of looking at the human world, at the outside edges of events that found their way, in shreds and scraps, into human newspapers and rumors. Caius and his aides ran the most extensive and well-updated private library in Italy. At any given time, five or more vampires were poring through periodicals in dozens of languages, looking for signs that someone had lost control in a public place or lingered too long in one town or turned a newborn without taking responsibility.

If a problem looked genuine, the Volturi would first contact any law-fearing vampires in the area for more information. Sometimes, this was as far as anything went. The neighbors provided a rational explanation, and Caius was satisfied or he wasn't. I saw in Aro's memory that he'd twice spoken with Eleazar for this purpose, one time very recently. Something about unexplained deaths in Seattle...

But sometimes there were no vampires of suitable reputation to ask, or they could be asked but didn't know anything. Most nomads had little use for cell phones, making them hard to find on short notice. In those cases, Caius would select a team to investigate in person. This, Aro saw, was where I would be of most use. As an interrogator, Jane was reasonably effective, but there was always the possibility that her subject would lie, tell her what she seemed to want to hear. And then there was the matter that, while Jane couldn't use her power without her subject's knowledge, I could collect information gently or even secretly, and I'd proven that I was damned fast.

But, at the moment, sending me away from the city, even surrounded by other Volturi, was out of the question. Aro knew that I wouldn't run away, not with Bella here, but he didn't know if I could hold it together or work with my new covenmates. For the time being, my place was Volterra.

He certainly had enough for me to do. He hadn't gotten tired of me yet.

I was sampling thoughts for him. Members of the guard, human employees, the flow of the crowd as the festival wound to a close. The human thoughts in particular particular fascinated Aro. He hadn't touched many humans in his long life. His appearance was such as would startle casual guests and he'd long ago learned to keep his hands clear while he was feeding.

_They concern themselves with such trifling things. Imagine..._

_I don't have to_, I thought back.

_Yes, and neither do I, it seems._ I saw the smile on Aro's face in his own mind's eye. _Still, I would not have thought they were so very different from us._

I had chosen not to argue with him, but I couldn't help my thoughts, not today. _They're not that different, only more difficult to read. And it doesn't mean Carlisle is wrong_.

_Of course not, but it suggests it, don't you think?_ He changed the subject. He had decided not to argue with me as well, for now. _I'm surprised you don't find it frustrating, seeing momentary thoughts out of context_. Aro directed the thought at me deliberately this time. He hadn't yet tired of it.

My mind flickered back to Carlisle's speculation on the source of my gift. Like Jasper, I'd been in tune with the people around me even when I was human. Perhaps that natural intuition was complementing my ability, allowing me to fill in the blanks between what I could hear and what I could not. That and, after all these years, I just didn't care.

What I cared about was Felix. The hulking vampire had returned from his delivery errand and was passing the time loosely following Aro and me around as Aro got a feel for seeing through my eyes. He expected Heidi to text him for help soon. It made sense. Physically, Felix was the strongest vampire in the coven, the best choice short of Jane for dealing with hostile newborns. I didn't know how grateful to be that Jane's gift did not work on Bella if it meant that the brute would be her caretaker.

His thoughts were ...not pleasant.

_So the Master has a new pet. I wonder if he'll let me teach it a few tricks._

The thought was directed at me, deliberately. I wondered at this. Demetri was smarter than Felix by a great deal, but it hadn't yet occurred to Demetri that he could use my gift to send me messages, and Felix was already on top of it. Of course, his messages were nothing but taunts, but still.

_Don't say anything to him, Edward_, Aro thought. A touch of mischief grew in his mind. He wanted to see what Felix would do when he didn't know that Master was watching.

Felix's thoughts were less deliberate now. He was weighing his options. I didn't bother to hide my distaste. I'd seen it too many times in too many situations not to recognize this wasteful, selfish animal urge. It had been a long time since Felix had a new member of the guard to push and dominate, and here I was, so excitable, overreacting to every little thing—he remembered my savage hiss at him in the feasting hall, when he'd imagined himself at Bella's femoral artery. He could tell that Demetri didn't like me either, and he was used to following Demetri's instincts. But which sort of torments to bring forth on me? He ran through them all like a man selecting which tie to wear with a certain suit. I filed each one mentally away. Some I could head off now that I knew they were coming. Others I could not stop no matter what. In time, Felix would realize that childish provocations would make no headway with me, but would he tire of it or turn to more serious matters? Now that Alice was safe, the only way to truly hurt me was to go through Bella, and I could not allow that.

But Felix did not make a move and Aro's attention drifted elsewhere.

It was a lesson to me. Aro knew perfectly well that whatever he planned I would see coming, so he built his plans like a freight train barreling down an incline: I could see, but I could not stop.

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Not all of what Aro saw displeased him. Now that I was firmly in hand, the discrepancies between what I read for him and what he'd been expecting came off as pleasant surprises. It had been a long time since he had truly allowed anything to surprise him. We were in the library, watching Caius's agents scan through a half-dozen Romanian newspapers. I registered the thoughts before any of us heard the footsteps in the hallway outside. So did Aro.

I looked at him. I looked toward him like a skittish child unsure of permission, like the half-trained dog he wanted me to be.

_Edward Cullen, when you went against my wishes on your first day here, you took great care not to embarrass me publicly._

"Yes Master," I answered out loud. Demetri looked up. So did some of the others. Only Demetri had figured out what Aro was doing with me, but the others would in short order. Like child with a secret, Aro wanted to have his fun before then.

_That day, you promised me that I would never mistake the crowd again, not while you were in my service. Can you keep that promise, Edward Cullen?_

"Yes, Master," I said out loud.

"What is it?" Caius asked carefully. He'd been out of sorts these past few days while Aro ignored him to play with his new toy. Marcus's thoughts had been more peaceful. He took my addition to the family dynamic like any other new development.

"It seems our new resident is even more talented than we had believed, brother," Aro answered. "Heidi sent Gianna a text message about a minute ago. Edward has just told me what she's going to say."

"I thought it was the other one who could see the future," said Caius.

_Text message..._ Marcus mused. _Is that the one where they type with the number keys?_

"Yes, that's the one," said Aro.

Marcus looked up. "Hm?"

_He's not used to having his thoughts read this way,_ I explained quickly. _He doesn't know that you were answering his question. May I go?_ I so wanted to go.

The door opened and Gianna walked in, her sensible pumps clacking loudly on the hardwood floor. Aro looked up.

"A message came for you, sir," she said, holding out a modest cell phone.

"Did it now?" he asked in amusement.

Caius raised his gray eyebrows. Marcus smiled, as if the matter wasn't quite funny enough to laugh about. I felt like a violin string that had been plucked too hard. I couldn't stop shaking.

"Allow me, Master," Demetri said quietly, reaching out to take the phone from Gianna's hand. I watched her thoughts carefully, looking for any further news. She was only mildly disappointed to see Mr. Demetri and not Mr. Felix.

I wondered what Demetri was doing for a moment and then realized that Aro must have been in the habit of having things read to him. Why hadn't I noticed? Was it his eyes or just another way to express his power?

"Our new arrival is awake and your orders have been followed," Demetri recited simply.

My focus was entirely on Aro. _What orders?_ I had to know. But Aro was ready for me. He stubbornly kept his thoughts away from the past, concentrating entirely on the question of whether Bella would be able to confound his gift now that she was one of our kind.

_Our kind..._

Three days had passed. Three whole days had dawned and withered and faded from the earth. Bella was gone now, and there had been no kind face to witness her last moments. This message meant that her human time was up, her human spirit damned or escaped, and her soulless shell would climb the walls craving the blood of the living.

It made no difference. Whatever was left of Bella, she was my newborn and, until she could control her hunger and take care of herself, she was my responsibility.

...a responsibility that Aro could well prevent me from meeting.

"Yes, Gianna, would you please fetch Felix?" he was saying.

"Right away, sir," she said.

Aro gave me a long look, as if he could possibly need to size me up when his gift had already stolen all my secrets.

_Better to say this part out loud_, thought Aro, _make sure no one's mistaken anything important_.

"You take your duty to your turned very seriously, young Edward," said Aro.

Everyone was watching. Caius and Marcus had both looked up. Even the staff had set aside their papers at Aro's official tone. And they all heard what Aro wanted them to hear. I made sure of it for him.

"Yes, Master," I answered.

"Can you see to your duties to the Volturi with similar devotion?"

Of course not. Nothing could match what I owed to Bella, nothing. There could be no desire for me but the desire to atone. And he knew it. But that wasn't why he'd asked.

"Yes, Master," I said. And the crowd heard me say it.

_They also heard you acknowledge Bella as mine_, I added, more than a little smugness in my thoughts. There was no reason not to be thorough.

_I noticed,_ Aro added._ I hadn't meant to emphasize that, but that's why you're here, isn't it?_

The library door opened behind us and Felix walked in. "It seems that our dear Bella is awake," Aro said as if to no one in particular. "I imagine that she would like a chance to speak with her maker."

Demetri's eyebrow twitched. _Speak with a day-old newborn? Good luck with that._ I ignored him, focused on Aro.

He nodded to Felix. "Show him the way."

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	7. Ch 6 Her

This is as good a time as any to say it: I'm writing this story out of order. This was actually one of the first scenes I composed, which is why it is ready so soon after chapter five. So if there's a long gap between updates, often enough it will be because I'm working on something that will happen down the road. Sometimes I have to knuckle down and get that next connecting bit—like the last two chapters—out of the way, but more than half the time, I write what the spirit moves when it moves it. This is another reason why you can expect that I'll go back and forth making new changes as the continuity gets tweaked.

_Not her!_ –Edward, _Midnight Sun_

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I barely felt the stones beneath my feet. The furious energy that I'd fought to keep inside my skin these past few days had left me, shrunk down to a cold and quiet buzzing in the pit of my stomach. I watched the hallway open up as we walked steadily toward the stairs. I was perfectly capable of moving faster; by now I'd pieced together a pretty good mental map of the compound from Felix's and Demetri's thoughts, but instead I walked, one foot in front of the other, one step at a time. It was the next best thing to a heartbeat.

I tried to prepare myself. I knew it wouldn't work, but I tried. Even if Heidi's message hadn't said it straight out, I could count. It had been three days. What was I going to find when I reached the hidden room on the lower levels? Was it possible that I would find Bella there? Could she even still _be_ Bella without her soul? I closed my eyes for a moment. Carlisle would have told me to hope. But hope wouldn't help me now.

I put those thoughts aside and ran through every memory I had of Jasper's time with Maria. There weren't many. It hadn't been a pleasant subject for either of us.

My "guide" was not helping, but for once my own thoughts were dark enough to swallow up most of his.

"It's just down here," Felix said as we rounded a corner. My heart tightened. I had seen this hallway in Heidi's memory. It was empty now and as unremarkable as Marcus could ever wish, but I could smell the stone and steel in the air, feel the heaviness of the earth and concrete around us. This place had been built like a fortress in reverse, meant to keep enemies in.

We reached the cell door. It was steel nearly all the way through, supported by the building's reinforced foundations. Even I wouldn't have been able to move it without some difficulty. Inside, I knew from Felix's memory, steel bars sunk into the stone crisscrossed the granite like a web.

No sound came from within.

Felix pulled a great metal key from inside his cloak and held it out as if to hand it to me. I could see his intent in his mind, though, and did not reach for it. Fluidly, he placed the edge of it inside the lock.

He had a key to Bella's space and I did not. He liked that entirely too much. And I could tell from the look on his face that he knew what it did to me. Behind that smirk I could see his thoughts. Rage glowed like a white-hot iron inside me at the images he held out to my mind. Bella's sweet body, still flushed with her own human blood, limbs twisting, underneath his hands.

He didn't know how to lie with his thoughts. The images were constructs, only his filthy imagination, not to mention that Bella's scent was nowhere on him. Felix was trying to lure me into a fight. Yes, a young vampire still in her transformation would be a very vulnerable target, in too much pain to fight back or even know what was happening.

But Felix would want her to know. And he wanted me to know.

Fool. Stupid ox. He was as strong as Emmett, certainly a more experienced fighter than Emmett, but he didn't have my brother's drive or imagination. Without Demetri to back him up, I could defeat him without too much effort. But of course, he would make sure that someone was there to back him up. And I had no allies here.

"Are you sure you want to go in there?" he smirked at me. Felix smiled tauntingly, but I didn't budge. He would not be able to return to Aro with any story of my misconduct. For now, until his anger cooled, I was the model prisoner.

But Aro wouldn't need any informants on my behavior, I remembered sickly. He craved seeing the world through my eyes, knowing the thoughts of all around him. It would be a long time before he tired of the novelty.

I kept my thoughts on Felix. It was better than thinking about Aro or about ...whatever I was about to see. He was a brute but not an unsophisticated brute. When he slipped his meaty fingers through the handle and pulled the door open, he positioned himself so that anything inside the cell would see me and not him blocking the exit. If he hadn't spent so much time thinking about it, I might have been unnerved. I ignored him. Aro had told him to see me to the cell and then report back, returning only when it was time for me to resume my duties. Anything that he thought about anything was about to become moot.

I stepped into the room, the cell, and slipped my gray cloak from my shoulders as I checked behind me. Felix sealed the entrance with no tricks. The inside of the security door matched its outside with one major exception: it's surface was scarred with jagged, finger-shaped streaks left by decades of hunger-mad newborns trying to claw their way out to the human servants in the hallways. Most of the marks were dulled by rust and cobwebs. Others couldn't have been hours old. I closed my eyes and turned around.

I saw a figure huddled in the corner, arms wrapped around its knees, face turned away.

I was sure that Felix had led me to the wrong room.

A moment later, I knew he hadn't. The figure didn't hold herself the way Bella had, but it was wearing Bella's clothes. And it was utterly quiet. I took a step closer. In a way, it was fitting, perhaps the only thing about this whole sick scenario that was fitting: The silence of Bella's mind had been the first thing I'd noticed about her as a human. It was how I recognized her now.

She didn't move, though she must have heard me in the room. Her posture was completely defeated. Every frozen line of her still body radiated shame. For a second I was sure I'd misread Felix. I felt my vision go black with anger. I would kill him. I would run him down and tear his black, rotted heart from his body.

And that was when she looked up.

Two eyes like red coals, newborn-bright, stared back at me, and in that moment, they were all I could see of her. I watched as they grew wide.

At first, I couldn't read her face. Then I realized that she was reading mine. One smooth hand drew back from her knees and she leaned away, as if she were trying to push herself into the wall.

Of course, of course... I thought back to my own first days. It had been nearly impossible to hold a thought, to remember where I was or even my own name, and I'd had Carlisle's voice in my head to guide me. I realized with a pang that she probably didn't fully comprehend who I was. I steadied myself and pushed the anger off my face. Felix's time would come. For now, she was more important.

"Bella?" I said gently. I knew it was foolhardy, but I moved closer. A cornered newborn was capable of anything, and the human blood still sweetening her veins made her strong enough to tear me apart before she realized what she was doing. Still, I sank to my knees beside her, reaching out with one hand. "Bella, it's Edward," I managed. I had to get my voice under control, remove all agitation. Even if she couldn't piece together exactly what I was saying, she would still read my tone. I remembered Rosalie sitting beside Emmett, speaking, just speaking in her beautiful voice as he made his way through his change. I'd thought it another of her conceits. The memory seemed bright and perfect to me now. "I don't know if you can understand me," I said, and my own voice was thick and tense. I paused to steady myself. I had to be Jasper. I had to project calm. "But it is going to get better. Time will pass and you'll be able to think clearly again," I promised. "Rosalie and Emmett were both through the worst of it in a few days."

She looked down, as if she were thinking about what I'd said. I noted with a mix of guilt and relief that it was easier to look at her without the eyes pointed at me. Alice's vision this past spring had only given me one angle, but now I studied the line of her cheek, the turn of her nose. It was Bella and not Bella. There was just enough human imperfection in her for her to be recognizable to someone who knew what to look for. Even here, even through all this, I didn't want to look away. Her face was different but felt like it wasn't. It was the only thing in this whole city that was familiar to me.

I carefully laid my palm against her shoulder, not wanting to frighten her. I tried not to remember the warmth I'd once felt there. Her near hand slid up and grasped my wrist, holding my hand against the dusty cloth of her shirt. With an unnatural peace inside me, I recognized the gesture from three days earlier. She'd held my hand against her face, trusting me not to draw her life out through her skin. Her grip was stronger now, and colder, but somehow it felt the same.

She knew me. She was herself.

Relief surged up inside me, clean and warm. I took her in my arms and she fit her strong new body against mine, pressing her forehead against my shoulder like a child. I realized that I'd been holding my breath, a nervous, countereffective human habit. Now that I was surer of my welcome, I breathed in. Something in the air nagged at me, but I ignored it, focusing on Bella. There was some trace of the flowers I'd known, but the petals were flecked with venom. This was her scent now. This was her scent and I would learn to love it.

There was no trace of Felix in this room or on her skin. He'd been bluffing. He'd been lying just to get to me. I would let him live so long as it stayed that way.

"Edward," she said. Bella's new voice was graceful, every bit as sweet as Esme's or Rosalie's, but its music was marred by fear and sadness. She drew back and looked at me with her terrible eyes. "Edward, I'm so _sorry_," she said.

She tucked her chin around my shoulder, holding on to me as if her life depended on it. I shook my head. This was my fault, _my_ fault. It was my fault for leaving in the first place, for staying away, for endangering her and my family by seeking death from the Volturi. None of this was—

"She was so scared!" Bella's breath shuddered out of her in tearless sobs.

And then I recognized the other scent in the room.

I felt my arms go slack around her shoulders. Suddenly, I couldn't take my eyes off the wall in front of me. The bars weren't spinning. The room should have been spinning around me. The ground should have opened up to pull us both in.

No.

No, no, no, no, no...

"Edward, I didn't want to," Bella was practically begging now as her fingers tightened painfully on my upper arms. "I swear I didn't want to."

She began to pull back but I recovered myself enough to hold her tight against me. I didn't want her to see my face. If I'd been human, my mind would have blanked out, shut itself down so that I couldn't hear what she said next. But I wasn't human. I heard it all.

"I tried to hold my breath like you did—" The words tumbled out of her and into me. I couldn't stop them. "—but it was still there in the back of my mouth and I could still hear her heart beating and my throat just hurt so much!"

If I'd been human, she'd have killed me.

Bella.

Not Bella.

I felt my eyes close. The world had become a heavy place.

"They locked a human in here with you?" I asked, but it wasn't really a question.

My Bella.

A killer before she was an hour old.

"Edward I'm so sorry," her voice broke. Her shoulders shook.

Not her, not _her_.

Something inside me twisted, turned backwards on itself. I could feel it straining, struggling, about to crack. I pulled my arms tighter around her and began to rock us back and forth. Hopefully, she wouldn't realize that I wasn't doing it for her.

"Why can't I cry?" she asked the empty air behind me. "I think if I could cry—"

"It wouldn't help," I said, too quickly. I didn't know how to comfort her after what had just happened. There was a part of me that didn't want to.

She was gone, the Bella I'd known, the Bella who had never hurt an innocent person. I had killed her and they had buried her within these walls and now she was gone. In her place was some other creature, as soulless and stained as I was, unable to even cry for what she'd done.

I finally identified that feeling. I understood why it had taken so long. I hadn't felt it since I'd been human, watching other men go to war while I waited and then seeing my father and mother sicken and die from the influenza.

I was helpless.

Up until now, I'd always had a way out. Before Rosalie's phone call, I'd known I could return to Forks, confess all to Bella and hope she would take me back. Afterward, I'd known I could come to Volterra and ask for the end. For this, there was nothing I could do, nothing. It could never be mended or undone. Even if Felix had carried out the filthy threat in his mind, I could have at least brought her his head and watched her burn it.

I breathed deeply. This Bella's scent was sweeter now, and it gave me no pain. I would have taken her old scent, the old thirst, rather than know what I knew. I would have taken a thousand white-hot pokers down my throat rather than have these thoughts inside me. But for now, her scent was sweet, and it gave me no pain.

I breathed again as she touched her cheek against my shoulder. The movement was so sudden, so childlike and trusting that it took me completely by surprise. I rested my face against her neck. Her skin was smooth and only barely gave under mine. No pain. I closed my eyes. It was a poor trade for Bella's innocence, but it was all we would get. She was mine now in a way that nothing else could have made her, changed by my same blood and stained by my same sins.

No... No, I realized slowly, not the same. I'd hunted humans once. They'd been monstrous humans, but I'd gone looking for them and ended their lives. Bella had killed the human, but they'd locked it in with her first and then she'd— Something else pushed its way into my consciousness.

"You held your breath?" I asked.

I felt her nod her head against my shirt.

"Why?"

Bella put her hands on my shoulders, pushing out my grip. I noted mentally that she was stronger that I was now. Her eyes met mine and for the first time, I could see through the flames. I could see all the way down inside her.

"I told you," she said, as if she were afraid of what I might do. "I _didn't want to_."

I took her face in my hands, running the pad of my thumb along her cheekbone. Her expression didn't change. "How did—" I stopped. I had to compose my thoughts. "It occurred to you to hold your breath?" I asked.

She nodded. "You said you did it with me. In Biology."

"You remembered that?" I asked in wonder.

"Of course I remembered that," she said. "I'm still alive because of that."

"Bella..." the thoughts swirled and collided in my mind. "On your first day of this life, you shouldn't have been able to think about anything but the thirst. You shouldn't have been able to try. You shouldn't have been _able_ to not want to."

"But I didn't," she said, too fast. "Edward, I swear I didn't."

I couldn't believe that it had taken me this long, but I finally realized what she needed from me.

I held her face in my hands. "I believe you," I said.

It was harder without either her thoughts or her heartbeat to listen to, but I could almost feel her growing calmer. "I believe you," I said again, not bothering to mask the undercurrent of wonder in the words.

She looked away, staring past my shoulder at nothing. I pulled her against me again. I reached up with one hand and gently stroked her hair. It felt the same beneath my fingers, a bit cooler, a bit stronger. Under my touch, Bella quieted. Her shoulders shook, but her breath no longer caught and snagged in her lungs.

"You're not like them," I told her. It was true. And that almost made up for it all.

I had been wrong.

I did have one ally here.

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu

I'm looking for a high-level beta. I need someone who can work with things like story structure and long-term planning. I don't mind when people point out my typos, but I need more than just good copy editing skills to pull this off. A high tolerance for horror-quality violence may come in handy.


	8. Ch 7 Blind

Two announcements! First, this coming September 11-14, I will once again be Supporting Stacie at the September Author Auction, hosted by Majick's World of Fanfiction. Show up to bid on short fanfics or just to cheer people on and watch everyone's goofy antics. (Last time, Kinolaughs and I kept spoofing _Pride and Prejudice_. No, _really_.) All proceeds go to Ms. Holeman's medical care.

Second, I always post my first drafts up at the Bloodfeud first, usually several days in advance. If anyone wants to chime in, that would be the best place and time to do it. Bloodfeud being an _Underworld_ board it is permeated with awesome. Come for the Beckinsale, stay for the crazy.

I had originally intended this chapter to be from Edward's perspective, only writing this version as an exercise, but it just came out so well that it had to be chapter seven.

Again, these chapters are a work in progress. If any of you have a suggestion for how I can make my point come through with the sharpness that I'd love it to, please chuck the shyness and go for it.

NOTE: The ending of this chapter has been significantly changed as of December 2009. I realized I was pulling my punches. If you took a fancy to the previous version, though, it's up on Bloodfeud.

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" I'd thought this was the one sure physical thing in my whole world: the flawlessness of Edward's face. I may as well have been blind." –Bella, _Breaking Dawn_

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He hadn't thrown me away.

I'd been so afraid, so afraid of a hundred different things, but most of all that he would throw me away, reject me completely, tell me that I was everything I thought I was. And when the door had opened and I'd thought it was Heidi again but it had been him but he'd been looking at me like _that_ and I was sure, so sure he knew—

I hid my eyes against his shoulder and tried to push the thought away. It didn't matter now, what I'd thought I'd seen on his face. It was as if I'd never seen him before that second, as if he were a young Zeus in his fury, thunderbolt in hand. But it didn't matter now, did it?

I tried to take a calming breath, but it didn't make me feel better like it should have. It was as if all the membranes in my lungs were scarred over and sealed. I could no more breathe through them than through the palms of my hands. Only my nose was still working, screaming dust, blood, metal, vampire, shame and fear in an endless litany of sensory overload. It was like being tied down in front of an IMAX screen with my eyes pinned open and the volume jammed all the way up. The world kept _jumping_ at me and I couldn't shut it off. Even when I'd tried to focus on one thing, like counting the scratch marks on the door, I hadn't been able to crowd the rest out. My mind could do too many things at once.

I'd tried biting into my own fingers until my teeth hit bone and it hadn't been enough to stop that ...sweet, pulsing _heartbeat_—

I shuddered, trying to pull myself together. I focused on the feel of Edward's hand stroking my hair. I counted how many threads I could feel under each fingertip where I clutched at his shirt: 237, 219, 251... Nothing worked.

"...come and see you whenever I can," Edward was saying. "You won't need to stay in here much longer. They'll be able to let you out as soon as—"

"No!" The word jumped out of my throat, punching the air.

I felt Edward loosen his hold on me, draw away as all my panic flooded back in. He was expecting me to explain. I didn't look at him. I _couldn't_ look at him.

I hadn't thought it out beforehand, but I knew why I'd said it. I could remember clawing at the inside of the door, knowing there was something out in the hallway that I had to have, something I _needed_. At the time, I'd thought that it was Edward or Alice waiting for me, that there was something I had to do to help, but then the door had opened and I'd heard Heidi's voice telling someone to go in and then, and then—

"Bella," Edward said carefully. I could feel his fingers against my cheek and under my chin, but he couldn't pull my face up to his any more. He could only show me how he wanted me to move.

"I—I don't want to get out," I managed. "I can't... " I thought about the steel door, still there after all my scratching and pounding. "_I can't hurt anyone if I'm in here_." I must have shuddered again because I was back in his arms.

"It won't last," he told me gently. "This part doesn't last."

I buried my face against his smooth neck. It felt different to me ...not _warm_, not _soft_. He was a little cooler than I was, probably because I was still warm from... from...

_No_, I told myself, pushing the panic down. It was easier this time. There was something blocking the scent of blood, washing it clean from the air, from my mind.

Edward's scent. I recognized its sweetness, but now I could name it. Honey... almond... sunlight... and there were other notes that didn't match any scent I recognized from my human life, but all together they added up to Edward and no one else. Like his face, everything I remembered was still there, but there was more now than I'd been able to see before.

I breathed deep, finding the calm that I'd been missing from oxygen alone. His hand kept floating up and down my spine, as if he were afraid of holding me any tighter. What else had the fire changed about me? I ought to have been blushing like anything. I was used to feeling my insides warmer than my skin. I was used to seeing nothing but darkness in shadows. I was used to quiet and rain and hunger and fatigue... and...

"...sorry," he was murmuring. "I'm so sorry, Bella. I'm sorry any of this ever—"

I twisted enough to put one set of fingertips over his mouth. I simply thought about the motion and then it was done. I hadn't even needed to lift my head from his shoulder. I let my fingertips take in the impossible smoothness of his lips and then pulled them away. Again, it was like a flickering light. I thought about moving, and then my arm was snaked around his waist again.

It was selfish, but I couldn't bear it. I couldn't carry anyone's weight but mine today. I felt a new wave of guilt. Edward done something he abhorred to save me, and I couldn't even listen to him? I couldn't even—

"Shhh..." he said soothingly. I hadn't even realized that I'd gone tense.

"What's wrong with me?" I asked. "Everything I think, everything I feel. It's like the world is still on fire."

"Nothing," Edward whispered. "Newborns are like that. That's all."

Newborns... That's what I was, a vampire newborn. Edward had changed me himself.

"What's going to happen?" I asked. To us. To him. To me.

Edward paused, and when he spoke his voice was measured and rhythmic, like Renee's the time I'd asked her what we'd do if she'd lost her job like my classmate Amy's mom had. It was as if he knew that I wouldn't like the answer and was trying to think of a way to say it that wouldn't set me off. "I've been watching Aro's thoughts," he said. "He's the one who'll make the final decision. They're going to keep a close watch on you for the first year. You won't be allowed out into the city by yourself until they're sure you're not—"

_"A danger to humans. A ravening beast. Everything I've ever hated,"_ I couldn't help imagining him saying.

"—going to lose control," Edward hadn't broken stride. "In the meantime..." He paused. What wasn't he going to tell me? "Aro is waiting to see how you turn out before he assigns you any duties."

Turn out? What was that? What did it mean? Was there something about becoming a vampire that Edward hadn't told me? Could I end up some twisted monster with a bat's wings instead of arms or something? No, that was silly. Bats had nothing to do with vampires. I remembered Aro and Caius and their strange, rocky skin. I'd thought it was because of their age, but were they vampires gone wrong? I opened my mouth to ask Edward what he'd meant, but he'd already moved on.

"The Volturi have a beautiful library," he said, like a swim teacher trying to tempt a child into the water for the first time, "probably the best of its size in Europe."

I pushed a smile at that. So not everything about my life would be different? I could still love books? They were probably all in Italian or Latin or something. Well... It wasn't as if I didn't have time to learn.

"What about you?" I asked quickly. I had to know. The glittering sea of red eyes, the row of blurred faces filing by after Heidi's voice like children after the Piper of Hamlin. "What are they making you—" My throat didn't close up, not really, but I was so sure that it would that my words stopped anyway. "What is Aro making you do?"

Edward's explanation was careful. He would work for Aro and Caius finding vampires who'd broken the law, run too many risks or taken too many humans in one place. His words were perfectly chosen, perfectly clustered around each other, all trying to distract me from the frigid truth hiding behind them like a child behind a tree: He was a prisoner now; we all were, and it was my fault.

He shook his head, stroking my cheek again. "It's not so bad," he told me. "Right now, he's still fascinated with my gift. I just walk around letting him see his coven through my eyes."

I held on to half a smile, waiting for the rest. "He hasn't always liked what he's seen," he'd tell me next, or, "Right now, he's wishing he'd kept his eyes shut," or, "I showed him what an evil bitch Jane is and he had her torn apart like a year-old birthday card."

Instead, he closed his mouth and looked away, spending a split-second lost in thought. My stomach went cold. What was going on behind his eyes? What had Aro done that had taken that part of him away? The storm inside me churned and flashed. I wanted to take his head off. I could do that sort of thing now, couldn't I?

"Ow!" Edward said softly. I frowned, looking around for the danger, until I felt his fingers prying my hands away from where they'd gripped his arm too tightly. He met my eyes. "You're stronger that you realize, Bella."

"I'm sorry," I whispered, loosening my hands. Was I stronger than Edward? I'd made him say "ow."

"It's all right," he said tersely.

He still hadn't told me. I'd been paying close attention, and the patterns were matching up in terrible ways. "You," he'd said, and "I." No "we." No "her."

What had happened?

"What is it?" he asked, intensely. Apparently, I was every bit as easy to read as I had been with a heartbeat and a face that could blush or go pale.

"Alice?" I managed, practically shivering where we knelt on the floor. "Alice?"

He held me tighter at that, leaning down to whisper the answer in my ear, "Alice..."

I bit my lip, then stopped. His voice was so intense... but I had to know.

"...Alice got away. She's safe." I could hear the note of pain in his voice.

The whirlwind inside me was building to hurricane force. I couldn't stop it. I wasn't ready... Alice got away—was I relieved? Alice wasn't here to help me. She was with Carlisle and Esme. I would never see her again. But she had got back to Jasper. But I wouldn't see her again.

I heard Edward's breath rush in and the sound of cloth tearing. The collar of my shirt had ripped at the back of my neck. I was on my feet. I was on my feet and... and—_everything!_

"She's— She's o-okay?" I repeated, trying to force the words through my mind into my strong, shaking body. God, what would make it stop? It had to stop! I'd fall apart if it didn't stop. "Alice— She got home?"

Edward was nodding, a strange tightness around his mouth. "Alice got away," he said again. "The Volturi can never get her. She's probably back in New York by now."

I made myself picture Alice at Cornell, walking into the room where Jasper was taking his philosophy class. I pictured him getting up to hold her hands like he had back in Phoenix. He was picking her up and spinning her in the air, and she was sad, so sad, but _safe_.

I took another deep breath. There was enough of Edward's scent in the air that it worked almost as well as it used to. It was different; of course it was different, but it worked.

Edward had gotten to his feet too. He put his hands on my upper arms, rubbing up and down. I shut my eyes and just let myself feel as his arms closed around me again and he gently tugged me back to a sitting position. We stayed like that for a long time—or perhaps it was only minutes. My mind was working too fast for me to gauge how time was truly passing. He just kept his arms around me, the fingers of his right hand flat against my shoulder blades as he swayed slowly. It was too calming, like the sleep that I would never know again. Edward loosened one arm to stroke my hair again and we just allowed time to pass. If nothing else, we had plenty of it now.

I felt him shift beside me, like a terrier cocking its head at a new sound. Edward told me before I could open my mouth to ask.

"Felix is coming," he whispered in my ear before. I tried not to flinch. I truly did, but it happened anyway. Edward held me closer for a minute. By then I could hear the footsteps in the hallway. "Look, Felix might try to..." Edward's mouth soured. "If he starts anything..." his eyes closed. "Just don't rise to it, Bella. Can you try?"

I nodded, not sure what I was agreeing to.

"Don't look at him," he told me. "No matter what he says, you can't hear him, you just look at me. Ignore him completely unless—"

I could hear the scraping of the key in the lock. Felix was in no hurry but it didn't sound as though he were dawdling either, just like the other two times the door had opened. I fought back the bright, sick feeling inside me. "Does he—" the words were out of me before I could stop them.

Edward pushed up on my chin, and I did what eh wanted this time, meeting the terrible question in his gaze.

"Does he have anyone with him?" I asked, my voice breaking. I didn't want Edward to see me like that. I didn't want to know how he'd look at me then. I didn't want to have another human. Except for the huge, hungry part of me that did.

He shook his head. "No," he told me, fingers stroking my cheek. "No, it's just him."

I nodded quickly, sinking back into him in relief as the door scraped open, loud against the rough floor.

"You two better be finished in here. Aro wants you," came Felix's voice. Finished? With what?

"Of course, Felix," Edward said calmly. He was addressing Felix, but he didn't take his eyes off me. "Thank you for your help."

"Of course," I could hear Felix him slightly more clearly, as if he'd turned toward me instead of Edward, "if this one hasn't done the job I would be happy to finish up," he said with a leer in his voice that left nothing to the imagination. The hiss left my throat before I knew I'd made a sound but I managed to choke it off halfway through. I didn't look at him, just watched the reflection of his words on Edward's face. There was a flicker of disgust before he steeled himself. I could guess what Felix was thinking, but I didn't want to know. It looked like Edward didn't want to know either.

After that, Edward acted like Felix hadn't spoken, like getting up had been his own idea. He leaned back to pick up his cloak from where he'd dropped it on the floor.

I thought of him walking out the door. Selfish as I was, the thought of being without the ballast of his presence worried me more than anything he'd have to face on the other side. The sight of him sliding on that cloak—the Volturi cloak—only made it worse. I didn't want him to go. The feelings built inside me like a swarm of icy bees and I found myself halfway across my cell in one instantaneous movement, my hand on his wrist.

"Bella," he said quietly, stroking his fingers across the back of my hand before tugging it away. "I'll come back when I can," he promised.

"Hurry it up," muttered Felix. I barely heard him.

"I need to—" My thoughts were jumping in eight directions at once, many times faster than they had before. "How do I keep my mind off it?" I managed at last.

Edward nodded. "Your human memories," he said quietly, as if he expected Felix not to hear, as if such a thing were possible. "All our human memories but Rosalie's have faded over time. If you want to remember Charlie and Renee—"

Something like anger flashed inside me, white and hot. Of course I wanted to remember Charlie and Renee and Jacob! What kind of horrible person wouldn't?

"—then play them over and over in your mind. That's what Rose did. She lost most of the human sounds and images eventually, but she remembers that she remembers it."

Like a childhood memory, I thought. I could remember the time that Renee had tried to make cookies in our first-ever microwave oven, and how she'd ruined it by using a metal pan. I knew that I'd been there, and I knew I'd watched from my high chair, but I remembered it from the outside, as if I'd been a third person in the room, watching my mother and me.

Edward smiled sadly. There was a depth to it that I hadn't been able to see before. If I'd had any breath, it would have taken it away.

"Come on," snarled Felix, stepping all the way into my small cell, forcing Edward to scootch forward to keep their clothes from brushing. Edward held up one hand, like a nobleman shushing a servant. Felix only growled more deeply. Edward leaned in, as if to whisper something in my ear or kiss me on the head the way I'd seen him kiss Alice. I wanted to frown, but kept my face smooth, showing nothing. Something was off about this.

It all happened at once. I saw something shadowy in the corner of my eye and then Edward was on the other side of the room, ducking against the back of the open door as Felix's fist swung through the air where his head had been and collided with the far wall. I let out a scream, deafening in the enclosed space, as Felix snarled like a lion trying to take down an interloper. Edward snarled back, the sound less deep, less rich as it broke out of his lean body.

"Bella, get back!" he shouted.

Felix broke his growl long enough to laugh, "Right, Bella," he echoed, "get back." I barely had time to wonder what was funny about this as he made a move for Edward's exposed throat.

And I was glad that I'd had human eyes back in the spring, glad that I'd passed out from the pain. If I'd seen a fight like this one, my heart would have stopped. I'd thought I'd known how threatening a vampire could be when I'd seen James and Edward face off in the baseball field but I knew better now. I may as well have been blind.

Felix lunged for Edward again and Edward ducked, just a fraction of a second too late to miss the blow. It caught the edge of his cloak, which snagged and tore as Edward slid through Felix's crushing arms to get behind him.

Suddenly I knew how the ancient Greeks had come up with titans. Watching Felix was like watching a mountain that could move and fight, an avalanche that could think for itself. Edward didn't look like Zeus now, not with this monster after him. Felix was matching Edward's movements with a massive grace that seemed impossible for a creature his size. I could see that Edward was faster than he was, much faster, but that didn't count for much in here. Edward was even dodging a split-second _before_ Felix threw his weight after him, but in such a tight space, Felix could follow up before his prey could move out of range. Edward was like a minnow trapped with a moray eel in a tank barely big enough to hold them both.

I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't even know why Felix had attacked Edward. I wanted to help. I wanted to hide. I wanted to scream until the rock walls shattered and this whole place came down and crushed all three of us.

The storm that had gathered inside me when Edward had told me that Alice wasn't with us was taking form again, except now there was no happiness to cut the fear—and it was fear. I felt my limbs shaking with contradiction. I wanted to run away. I wanted to fight. I wanted to be far, far from here. I wanted to help. I wasn't a weak little human anymore, so I could help, couldn't I?

"You'll hold still if you know what's good for you, girl!" Felix's words were barely intelligible, a roaring grunt.

Did I know what was good for me? _Don't think about it Bella._ I pressed my lips together, bracing my feet against the corner. I wondered if I should wait for an opening, but I knew I didn't have any clue. I took another useless breath, hoped to God that I didn't end up hitting Edward instead, and leaped across the sparse feet between me and Felix's unprotected back.

There was a tangle of bodies and limbs as I fought to get a grip on him or some angle to claw at his eyes. I was stronger than Edward, I remembered with round surprise, maybe even as strong as Felix, even if I didn't have Edward's gift or Felix's experience. I felt my fingernails scrabble against Felix's back, just barely brushing against the smooth skin of his throat before he sent me crashing against the far wall with one expert, open-palmed punch before I could even scratch his skin.

When I looked up, Felix had one knee on the middle of Edward's back, pinning him down while he held Edward's right arm locked above his head. Somehow, Edward's cloak had fallen to the far side of my cell, so that I could see every line in his hands as he tried Felix's grip. My mouth opened in a soundless "O" of disbelief and horror as they shaped Edward's name with no sound. The breath had been knocked out of me.

Felix growled then, a loud, deep, inhuman sound that carried all the way through the air and the walls and my bones and flesh and insides, and I suddenly knew, _knew_ that the vampire who'd made that sound was bigger and stronger and more ruthless than I was and that the best I could do was keep my head down and pray he didn't notice me. I threw both arms over my head as my legs gave out underneath me. I could only imagine how much worse it was for Edward, trapped under Felix's weight. I saw his eyes narrow as the force of it hit him.

Earlier, with the courtly farewell and the forehead-kiss, Edward had been telling Felix that he'd do as he was told, but not until he was good and ready. He'd been saying that he wouldn't jump at orders or come running when he was called. And this was Felix's direct, undeniable, _oh yes you will_.

It didn't make any sense, not any. What was Felix going to do with Edward now that he had him? And he did have him. I carefully lowered my fingers from in front of my face and took in the line of Edward's body, my new mind registering the angles of his limbs and the bones underneath. Felix had Edward pinned. Edward had lost. The fight was over.

The fight was over, so why did I feel like something terrible was about to—

Felix locked Edward's arm and twisted it with a sickening, wet crunch, snapping it at the shoulder. For a split second, I registered Edward's jaws opening in pain as a startled gasp left his throat. It all ripped through me like I was tissue paper.

The world flickered in my mind's eye. The scene in the room was the same but not the same, like a cat's cradle in the second before it came together. The thoughts that had been swirling like moths in my head suddenly crackled and ignited with a roar into one solid red tongue of something that wasn't fear and wasn't anger and filled me and filled me until my whole body was bright with the flush of it. My lips were peeling back from my teeth in a hiss, revealing the deadly venom underneath. My fingers were curving into claws.

There was no hesitation this time. It didn't matter that Bella Swan didn't know how to fight. I wasn't Bella Swan. I never had been Bella Swan. She'd never been there.

My body knew what to do; I had to bite and tear and scald my venom into my enemy before he could do the same to me. Felix saw me coming and leveled a kick to the middle of my chest without taking his hands off Edward. For the second time, I crashed through a few feet of air and into the wall of my cell, but I was up and back at him quickly. This time I actually scored skin, my teeth biting down near where his face met his massive neck, scraping for purchase against the smooth, metallic surface as the muscles of his jaw clenched underneath.

Felix grunted in annoyance, taking one hand off Edward to pry me loose. I felt the larger vampire's weight shift as he twisted toward me, shaking like an earthquake to drive me off. I held at first and then slipped, landing where the wall met the floor.

I was on my feet again almost instantly, but it wasn't fast enough. Somehow Edward had twisted free and even now I could register how beautiful he was, lips parted over his razor teeth, the perfect line of his body as he crouched, even with one arm dangling uselessly from his shoulder. I took it all in with a longing that could have torn me apart just in time to see Felix wrap both meaty hands around Edward's free wrist and drag him bodily across the floor. I heard another yelp of pain before suddenly the air was empty and the cell door slammed shut hard with me inside.

It didn't take a second for me to register what had happened. Then the sounds in the hallway. The fight was still going on. Why was it still going on? Why _wasn't I there_? Eight new gouges appeared in the scarred steel door.

I screamed in frustration, blind with fear or rage or just _need_, as I scraped and clawed and slammed myself into the barrier over and over again. The damned thing just wouldn't _give_ and I had to get out; I had to get _out!_

There had never been a town on the Olympic Peninsula. There had never been a city in the desert. There were no oceans or forests or long highways anywhere in the universe. There had never been a girl named Isabella Swan, or if there had been, she was long gone.

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	9. Ch 8 Time

The four and a half Twibooks are the creation of Stephanie Meyer.

So far, Support Stacie is going great. Sign up to bid or just to cheer people on and watch the crazy at http:/ / majiksfanfic . com / phpbb / viewtopic . php?f = 119&t = 2735. Remember, the last time I did this, "The Sweet Kiss of Charity" happened.

Okay, biting the bullet. I could use a good story-level beta for this thing. Most of the beta ads on ffnet are for grammar and spelling and—I think we can all face it—that's not what I need. I'm pretty darn good with the nuts and bolts and expressions. I mean in-depth characterization and plot beta-ality. I have some long-term scenes fleshed out and a general idea of where I'm going, but I could use some chapter-by-chapter.

EDIT: This chapter has been altered as of December 2008 to match changes made to chapter seven.

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"There are many choices before you. Consider them." –Aro _Breaking Dawn_

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_She's rather graceful, isn't she? And her gift still confounds you?_

I set my jaw, staring straight ahead at the library wall as Aro leafed through my experience with Bella, paying little attention to anything else that had happened in the cell. None of it was important to him, not the way it should have been, but he sucked up every last bit, like a child drinking a vanilla soda with a straw, down to the dregs of her fingers smoothing over the hem of my shirt.

"I hope you can forgive my lateness, Master," I said carefully.

He said nothing of it. I hadn't lasted long once Felix had dragged me out of the cell, not with my arm in such a state. More importantly, though, I simply hadn't had any reason to continue. Bella was separated from Felix by a steel security door, and he'd already done more damage than I wanted to think about. Felix had ground my head into the floor tiles and snarled some meaningless tripe about how I was to do as I was told. I'd been too caught up in the image of that girl whose face and form whispered an echo of my Bella, snarling and screeching like something out of Jasper's worst memories.

I'd still been able to hear those sounds, though, the scrape of iron-hard nails against the inside of the cell, the wordless screaming of an alien voice. I closed my eyes. There had been nothing on her face in those last moments, nothing. No human thought or compassion, no hope, just blind, feral aggression, a perfect mirror of Felix himself. I'd hoped she'd calm down once she could no longer hear us fighting, but it hadn't happened.

Felix hadn't done it on purpose. If he had, if he'd planned it, I might have been able to see it coming. I might have been able to... I shook my head. It was better that I knew. The girl in that cell was, whatever else she might be, a vampire newborn, and I would forget it at the peril of everyone around me. I'd forced the image into my heart, the new Bella's face distorted in an animal hiss.

It was how she must have looked to the human she'd killed.

I'd jammed my shoulder back into joint. Then I had followed Felix, obedient as a new lamb, to the upstairs chambers were Aro had been waiting. The sounds had followed me almost all the way back here. It made me want to take both of Felix's arms off.

_I'm rather glad you didn't. However, all things considered..._ He toyed with the images of Felix owning me in the cell. My arm still tingled. Aro had been expecting something like this from him, I saw. _Felix is not unknown to be territorial when someone joins the family,_ he told me, the words of his thoughts glossing over the reality. Felix was a thug. _But you seem to have aroused his particular interest_. It might have been that I'd made such a spectacle of not wanting to join the guard in the first place. It might have been that I was so emotional and responsive to his provocations. It might have been that there was a new, young female of whom I seemed protective and jealous. It might have been that he didn't like my face. My recollections of what I'd seen in Felix's mind suggested all three but confirmed none. Aro made a mental note to look into the matter the next time he had an excuse to touch Felix's thoughts.

_Although..._

I watched the idea rise in Aro's mind. He didn't need to wait for an excuse. He could easily order Felix or any other member of his guard to present their thoughts to him, but it was usually expected that he'd give a reason. I met his gaze as he sized me up.

_It would work_, I told him. _Just call him in. He won't even know that you're reading his thoughts._ Eventually, the Volturi would learn what it meant when Aro grasped my shoulder, but for now, while I was new, Aro could act with impunity.

_An interesting idea, young Edward. I may just take you up on it._

I closed my eyes, not for too long. He would want me to keep them open, but I needed to think.

I'd seen her. I didn't feel at ease, not close to it, but my anxiety was more focused now. I hadn't seen that she was safe, but I'd learned what kind of danger she was in. That meant that there were things that I could do about it. Action, I was sure, would take the gnawing feeling out of my chest, at least for a while.

All my strength had been centered on seeing Bella, finding out if she was all right. My distraction had caused me to underestimate Felix. I was sure that I had yet to fully realize the consequences of that mistake. But one venomous ox was the least of it. I had other problems. Bigger problems.

I couldn't tell.

I'd hoped I'd be able to tell. I'd hoped that I'd be able to read her mind now that it was more like my own, but even without it, I couldn't _tell_.

Was she still my Bella?

My insides clenched around the thought like a constrictor around a bear trap, unable to let go even as it tore me apart. I couldn't think straight. Guilt and grief were knotting together, twisting like rope burns in my throat and stomach. Nothing about the past hour seemed to add up.

Her eyes, her face, her voice... None of it had been right. She hadn't looked or sounded or _moved_ like Bella Swan. She'd moved like a newborn vampire, almost to quickly to see, even with my eyes. And Aro was right; she was graceful. Even at her best, my love had only rarely been graceful in her movements, when she'd told me about Phoenix, using her hands to trace the Arizona horizon on to the air in front of us, when we'd danced... I shook my head. That was nothing. Those things were trappings. They ought to be nothing.

The cold reality of the situation was that Bella had never killed anyone, would never kill anyone. Not my Bella. What had happened in that room was completely at odds with her nature. I tried to imagine Bella Swan attacking some captive human and drawing the lifeblood from her body. My whole being rebelled against it.

My memories of my own human life were dim and shaky. Most of the time, my own human life in Chicago felt like it had happened to someone else. The only person I'd known both before and after her turning was Rosalie, and I'd barely known her at all, just a stray thought here and there as she passed me in the street back in Rochester. She'd seemed so different, going from a vain, weak and silly girl to a scarlet-eyed demon hot for revenge. Esme had been sure that it was only because of what she'd been through, and hadn't she settled down after a few years?

Carlisle and I had discussed the matter, well out of anyone's hearing, another thought puzzle, another academic mystery of our existence. He'd thought that any changes in Rose's personality would be due to her new situation. I hadn't been so certain, but we'd both agreed that there was no point in worrying about it.

But something inside me kept saying that the love of my existence had spent her last hours in this world tormented and alone. Just like with her injuries the past fall, I hadn't been able to so much as hold her hand as it happened.

I wished I could shrug it off. I wished I could tell myself that it didn't matter. Esme and Rosalie were both good women even if they weren't the same women they had been. Carlisle and Emmett were good men. I ought to have been able to get past it. But I couldn't. I burned. I had to know. It had been my Bella, the human Bella, who'd changed me. No one else could ever take her place.

_Fascinating..._ Aro reacted, lingering on the memory of my conversation with Carlisle. I grit my teeth, angry at myself for having let my thoughts stray.

"Never mind, Edward, never mind," Aro scolded lightly. "It is an interesting question, and, I must admit—" His voice was laced with amusement now. "—one that has never before occurred to me." It was true, I could see. Aro did not think of humans and vampires as more than remotely the same kind of being. Becoming a vampire, to his mind, was an elevation on par with turning a microbe into a redwood or a chimpanzee into a man. There was no comparing the before with the after. Asking him whether a vampire was the same person before and after the transformation would be like asking an atheist how fast an angel could fly.

Aro looked back at me slyly, guarding his thoughts. He knew something. He was hiding something from me...

I pried and he could tell I was prying, but he knew his own mind too well.

No matter. It was Carlisle I had to talk to, not Aro. I had to own what I'd done, ask his forgiveness. And that was only if I was permitted to contact him. I hadn't found out if Alice had made it home safely. I hadn't found out how Forks was accepting the disappearance of Chief Swan's daughter.

...I hadn't eaten in nineteen days.

It came like a flash storm, out of nowhere. Intellectually, I'd never lost track of the amount of time that had passed since my last meal, but the pain of losing Bella, first to suicide and then to my own weakness, had taken its power away, made it a ghost in my body. Now... now...

Now it was still nothing I couldn't handle.

"Oh don't be ridiculous, Edward," Aro said out loud. Three of the vampires around us looked up from their reading. "You will need to eat sometime."

Aro almost jumped back at my mental snarl.

"Oh come now. You know very well that I didn't mean it like that."

I looked away so that he wouldn't seen the anger on my face. I could tell how he meant it. He thought I was offended because of some suggestion that I'd be willing to drink human blood.

I knew why he hadn't suggested it until now, why he hadn't pressed me after the feast, why he had let me bury my hunger to the point where it strained my self-control. He'd kept the idea of me feeding, of anyone feeding, far from his thoughts. He wouldn't have been able to help my learning of his plans for the newborn.

He held out his hand like a man helping someone up. I took it. It was less undignified than having him use my shoulder.

"As I was saying earlier, Edward, you do have to eat something. We don't usually bring in humans from the area near the city, but seeing as your arrival was unexpected—"

_No!_ I all but shouted. I breathed deeply, trying to block my own anger. I'd seen Aro's thoughts. He'd known from the first that I wouldn't immediately acquiesce to the Volturi's manner of feeding. He had already decided what to do about me. He just wanted the others to see me stew first. He couldn't risk being interpreted as weak.

There was a reason we'd kept a permanent home in Forks, despite the risk—and property taxes. It had been a luxury to us, so close to all that rich woodland, but we'd lived in Rochester. We'd lived in Chicago and Hanover and even Boston...

It did take some creativity to explain why you wanted to buy half a truckload of pigs, especially as the health codes had gotten more complicated and the raising of livestock had become more centralized.

_But it is still less trouble than explaining the disappearances of several dozen humans_, Aro acknowledged, taking in my memory of watching Emmett haggle with a rancher in North Dakota. _Yes, we shall be able to manage this,_ he told me in a reassuring tone. _Not elk or mountain lion, but some domestic beasts might be feasible_._ Perhaps four or five..._

_Six_, I corrected, trying to translate deer into pigs as I recalled Emmett's and Rosalie's newborn appetites. _Four for her_._ You only gave her one human—_I forced myself to keep my thoughts calm._ She'll need more than that._

Aro watched me disapprovingly. "Listen to me well, Edward," he said firmly. "You may be little Bella's maker but that doesn't mean that you know what is best for her. How do you know that she will want to share your peculiar lifestyle?"

That got people's attention. Half the library's occupants were only pretending to hunt information. The rest were watching openly.

_Don't tell me we're going to have two of them,_ thought a skinny male who was supposed to be scanning Latvian newspapers. _Ah well. More for me, at least._

_Bad enough they turned the human. Now she's going to have to live off rats? Poor thing..._ That thought had come from a medium-skinned female with dark, tight curls. I noticed that she didn't seem to be here to work.

_I know better than anyone else in this compound,_ I answered Aro's question, but I knew better than to say it out loud.

Aro's thoughts flicked to the loose crowd. _I know your views on this matter, Edward. And while I do not personally benefit from the way you keep your judgments to yourself, I can appreciate it. But do not condemn a new vampire to your limited way of thinking without allowing her to experience a normal life._

"Condemn her?" I said, disbelief twisting my voice. That was what I'd been trying to avoid. That had been the point of all of this.

I thought of that missing hour, of Bella shaking with tearless guilt in my arms, all but pushing the image into his mind so that he could see what she'd thought of his "normal life." She wouldn't have wanted Aro to know, but he did know and there was nothing I could do about it, so I might as well hammer in my point with the strongest nails I had.

"Many of us react strangely during our first few days," he said, as if explaining darkness to a frightened child. "In my three thousand years I have seen a few vampires react as she did." He recalled my memories of the Bella who'd emerged during the fight with Felix, completely without humanity. "And she seems normal in other respects."

_Did they hold their breath?_ I thought sharply. I hadn't meant to make the point; the thought came unbidden, but it didn't matter.

_Did she?_ Aro asked. He returned to that part of my memory, Bella swearing left and right that she hadn't wanted to, hadn't meant to, had tried her best...

I'd believed her. I still believed her.

"Not because it's what you want to believe, young Edward?" Aro asked. "She's frightened of you and, naturally, she wants to please you. She may have told you what she thought you wanted to hear. She may even believe it herself. Our minds play tricks on us during those early days."

I didn't want that thought. I didn't want it. But what newborn could resist fresh human blood?

My doubts left me as I answered my own question: The newborn who never went near it. Rosalie, in the violent passion of her revenge, had resisted her murderers' blood—because she'd chosen to and prepared accordingly.

"Interesting," said Aro, his thoughts turning over my memory of Rosalie coming home in a torn white wedding dress, blood in her eyes but nowhere else. "But a bit wasteful, don't you think?"

My own tricks were turned back on me. I couldn't help thinking of Rosalie's answer: _I didn't want them _in_ me_. Bella had had no such experiences, no reason to hate the thought of another person in her body with a fury that could compare to my sister's, nothing to sustain her in her attempt to resist the call of blood.

Aro was silent, his thoughts still and wordless. I tried to make sense of them. Something about Rosalie, something about how her life had ended...

_She made a decision_, I insisted.

"That may be," Aro answered out loud, "but neither you nor I can know for sure, can we?" He held up the fingers of his free hand meaningfully.

Against my will, scenes from my hour in the cell returned to me, the fear in her uncanny eyes when she'd first seen my face, the way she'd backed away, almost into the wall— Yes, I realized bitterly, she did look panicked enough to say anything.

_"I don't want to get out."_

To Aro's mind, this was explained by her fear of a world turned to chaos by her new senses. Even in an underground cell, the sounds of the city above must have seemed like a maelstrom waiting to swallow her. Bella had shielded her eyes against my neck, put her hand to my lips to stop me from speaking. She'd been trying to shut off sights and sounds. Aro had seen it in many vampires' first memories.

_"Does—Does he have anyone with him?"_ she'd begged to know. In that voice, I'd heard guilt, fear, desperation...

Aro saw something much simpler.

_Hunger, Edward_, Aro answered with a patience that was almost sympathetic. _As you said, one human is hardly enough to slake that early thirst. She wanted to know if Felix was bringing her next meal._

I snarled out loud again. The other vampires in the room were openly staring now, their thoughts filling the air like whispers.

_Why does Master Aro put up with this boor?_

_Yellow-eyed freak and his insolent ways..._

_The boy needs a good beating,_ one woman thought. Then her mind took on a wicked twist,_ ...I wonder if Master would let me do the honors,_ she supposed, images of the experience quick to follow.

Aro raised an eyebrow at that last but didn't turn around. He was used to other people's sexual thoughts, but only within the larger context of their daily lives. This was a lustful moment, alone.

I turned and glared at the woman. She had an oval face beneath honey-blonde curls. I supposed she was beautiful.

_Why is he staring at me? ...such a pretty thing._

I shook my head and turned away. She hadn't realized that I could read her thoughts, that Aro was listening through me to every thought in her head. I saw no reason to enlighten her. They'd all catch on soon enough.

"Calm yourself, Edward," Aro said gently. It was more for the crowd than for me, to let the witnesses know that he had me well in hand.

I did as he asked, but it wasn't easy. His interpretation of Bella's actions galled me. Worse, I knew that I wouldn't have been so angry if I didn't suspect it were true. I believed her because I'd decided to, not because I was truly convinced. There was no way to tell.

Aro was watching me again, with his own eyes this time. He was sizing me up. His dusty eyes moved carefully to the room's other occupants, though he already knew that some of them were beginning to go back to work.

_I did touch Jane and Alec before I had them turned,_ he told me, and the knowledge was like a trail of warmth creeping up my spine. _And I remember what I saw there quite clearly_. But he was blocking it now, damn it all! _I would be more than willing to share that memory with you, young Edward_. _Perhaps you will see something in it that I did not._

" 'But I shall have to earn it,' " I finished for him.

Aro nodded, an amused smile on his face. "You have a fascinating mind, young Edward," he said, thoughts reaching back to my many discussions with Carlisle, superimposing them on his own. "I would greatly enjoy sharing that information with you, if only to hear your impression of it."

How long would it take, I wondered. A year of good behavior? Two? Twenty? No matter. I could be patient. I would just have to live with the uncertainty. Time would tell.

And time, I realized sickly, watching Aro's thoughts flicker outward into his other plans for me, time I had.

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	10. Ch 9 Calm

The four and a half Twibooks are the creation of Stephanie Meyer.

Changes in rainfall really did cause an increase in jellyfish off the coast of Spain, or rather, it allowed what jellyfish there were to get closer to the shore. Ordinarily, rainfall on land causes fresh water to flow into the sea. The seawater nearest to the land, then, is less salty than pelagic (open ocean) creatures are used to. When there is less rainfall, as there was in Europe last year, animals that ordinarily prefer the open sea can come close to shore, where they scare tourists and clog fishing nets.

Mad props to the film _Three Days of the Condor_.

Nod to Holly who wasn't really like the sugar.

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"It can be terribly time-consuming to organize new members into a coven. I know that well! I am grateful I have others to deal with the tedium." –Aro, _Breaking Dawn_

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Aro's shale grip on my shoulder was my new constant. This wasn't his final plan for me, but it would do for now, an interim position until he could be certain that I would not try to escape. In the meantime, I was his eyes, ears and key to the minds of those around him. Months earlier, I had watched the young men of Forks look at Bella Swan, ignoring her true value, only dazzled by her shiny new-toy-ness, minds alight with possibility. It was far less comfortable from this side of the event.

Fascinating, though.

Two days had passed since I'd seen Bella—or whoever she was—and I felt as if my heart had gone numb, the way amphibians allowed their body temperature to drop as they hazed through the winter half-buried in some streambed. It was just as well. I had done all that I could do, for Alice and for the newborn. I would be no more help to her until Aro permitted me to visit her cell again, and he would do that at his whim or not at all.

A quiet heart allowed me to see things that panic and passion had kept hidden from me. If I had gone into hibernation, then I was looking up at the world through ice as clear as glass.

Aro almost never let me out of his grasp. Few of the vampires around us realized that he was using me to spy on their thoughts. As far as they were concerned, he was seeing through my eyes in a literal sense, preferring a view of the world that wasn't scummed over by his ossified corneas. I almost didn't mind. It meant that I had a front row seat.

My captor had one of the most vivid minds I'd ever encountered. Aro had been alive for thousands of years, and while he had never considered human beings to be his equals, he had made a study of their lives. He'd watched Rome flourish and die like an oak, leaving pathways in the rocks where its roots had fought their way in. He appreciated them the way Shakespeare had appreciated his starlings, respected the threat they posed the way humans respected bears and lions, treated his servants well the way a horseman saw to the health of his mount.

The vampire who set himself above understanding his prey would fall and risk exposing the others as he went down. Humans needed to be watched, their movements predicted. Caius managed a loose network of spies worldwide, vampires providing information on their home territories in exchange for the Volturi's favor. In Volterra, teams of vampires poured over every print and electronic news source in every language. Ostensibly, they were searching for any sign that members of our own race had been too foolhardy, but their efforts served another purpose: uncovering currents in the human world.

Currents that an old man who had had little to do but watch the flow of history would recognize. And I had provided him with a new way to do it.

This was the morning shift. Only twenty years earlier, the reading crew had waited for print editions, but now it was midnight in New York. They'd just blazed through most of South America and would be working on the eastern halves of the U.S. and Canadian sources for the next hour. By then, it would be time for Mexico City, the west coast and the rest of the New World. Then the library would empty for the Pacific break—Hawaii was thrown in with Japan and the Phillippines.

Aro could see all their findings in real time now, superimpose a report on drought in a Chilean local paper with the _New York Times_ report on HIV infection rates in southwest Mexico with last night's article in _Nature_ showing how changes in rainfall allowed jellyfish to clog fishing nets in Spain. He could line them all up like clues in one of the mystery shows that Emmett loved to watch.

Through me, he could see patterns forming. Through him, I could tell what they meant.

_...possibly as result of the one-child policy, China faces a deficit of about 30 million women..._

_...fears that the Celtic Tiger may not recover as quickly as..._

_...challenges faced by recent immigrants to Japan..._

The readers hadn't figured out what I was doing here. Master Aro would occasionally come in to watch them work, graze a wrist here and there, but my presence was a mystery. Soon, the details of my gift would circulate.

_You see it as well, then, Edward?_ Aro asked.

I turned to look at him directly.

_No, no! Watch Adrienne as she reads,_ he chided gently. _ The _Baltimore Guardian_, the editorial on currencies._

_Yes, Master_, I replied, turning my eyes back to the dark-haired vampire. She was the one who'd called my Bella a "skinny scrap of a thing" and witnessed my irrational response to her captivity after I'd returned from helping Alice escape.

_A very foolish thing,_ Aro thought in my direction. _Surely you can see how useful her gift would be to our efforts._ Here, Aro imagined himself with the pair of us, watching his guard explore the present as he learned to prompt my sister's visions of the future.

_Yes, Master,_ I thought, but I had no regret for my actions, and he knew it.

_But can you see it, young Edward? It's a good fifteen or twenty years off, if it comes at all,_ he said.

I nodded. _It's possible that they could dispel the situation before it comes to that._

_Possible..._ he admitted, but when had humans ever been any good at that? _But we shall have to be ready, prepare for all of the most likely outcomes._ I nodded again. Would I still be in Volterra when the time came?

Aro raised an eyebrow at that but did not answer.

The door clicked open behind us. I didn't turn around. Vampires came and went, almost as they pleased. Caius kept the schedule, but I hadn't yet learned his method.

My thoughts turned back to the vampire in the cell. Bella or not, she would need guidance, but there was nothing I could do until Aro permitted me to see her again.

I might as well just accept it, I supposed, my thoughts taking a less bleak turn. After all, this newborn wasn't my only responsibility, not now that I'd joined the guard. At least I had an opportunity to take part in something bigger than myself. By helping to preserve our way of life, I could—

Something cracked the ice in my mind. Something wasn't right. I jerked away from Aro, searching the rows of vampires in front of us.

"Edward!" Aro protested. "What has upset you?"

The power I'd felt on me shied back. I heard half-formed words of fear and surprise.

_There_, I thought, fixing on one of the two vampires who'd just entered the room. My eyes found what my mind already knew, a broad-faced vampire with curly light-brown hair. As I walked toward her, a man in a medium-gray cloak stepped forward protectively. I ignored him, but I still stopped when I was several feet away. This wasn't about a physical confrontation.

"You will not attempt that again," I told her simply.

"Attempt what?" she asked bluntly. But what she was saying out loud didn't matter, and she knew it. For a second, the expression on the woman's face was fearful, but then it grew haughty and defensive. _Only doing my duty,_ she thought indignantly. _Better for him in the long run, anyway. He might even manage to be normal if we can keep him away from the rest of those yellow-eyed pig eaters. I don't know why Aro doesn't just—_

I snarled, cutting off her ignorant insult. She flinched. The man growled.

"Edward!" Aro called sharply. "Leave Chelsea alone."

His spoken order was far gentler than his thoughts.

_Back down, Edward, and return to your place._

I didn't turn around. If Aro had wanted the rest of the room to know what he'd said to me, he would have said it out loud. Ever so slightly, I ducked my chin into my neck. The man beside Chelsea growled again, softer, acknowledging my lowered head as I backed away from Chelsea, his mate, his thoughts implied.

"Nevertheless," I said quietly, my eyes back on the woman, "you will not attempt that again."

_I will do what the master tells me to do_, she thought. Out loud, she only gave me a soft snarl.

"Edward," Aro called again.

I returned to my place.

Aro clapped his hand on my shoulder, strong as old iron as his thoughts flooded through me. Chelsea's talent was weakening or strengthening the emotional bonds between people, I suddenly knew. Most of the guard had figured or suspected that she helped to separate the innocent from the guilty at executions and other punishments, but they did not yet know that her duties also included all of them, revving up their loyalty to the elders and smoothing away anything that might make them want to fight each other.

Carlisle had once speculated that abstaining from human blood made us less territorial and allowed for the existence of large, semi-stationary covens. Aro noted my memory with amused skepticism. Surely, he thought, it was Jasper's influence that kept us all at peace, the way Chelsea's kept the Volturi guard off each other's throats.

Aro met Chelsea's eyes, a silent instruction for her to continue her ordinary duties. Her mate took her by the arm. To outward appearances, they had come to look something up online and would be gone in a minute. Her real purpose here...

Again, now that the part of me that would have been disturbed had gone to sleep, I could be fascinated. Chelsea saw the minds of the vampires in the compound as knitted together like a great loom, warp and weft. She touched each thread and adjusted gently, keeping them all tight and balanced. I watched the thoughts of Caius's readers. None of them felt a thing.

I wondered how much of the vaunted Volturi cohesion was due to her efforts. Chelsea was a new name, medieval at the oldest. The Volturi had been a power for thousands of years.

She'd tried to do too much too quickly with me. If she'd been more subtle...

I should have felt sickened but I didn't. Not today.

Aro observed Chelsea's ministrations with mild interest. He'd seen it all in her own memories many times. He was more concerned with me. My outburst today could be brushed off as general instability, a side effect of my unnatural diet and my long fast, Aro mused. Perhaps it might even be safe to say that he had told Chelsea to weaken my bond to Carlisle for my own good.

And whatever lie Aro chose, I was not to contradict it.

I met his eyes and nodded.

"Edward," Aro said sternly, like a grandfather scolding a disobedient child. "You will compose yourself."

"Yes, Master," I said. "Jane is coming," I told him, glad for a chance to change the subject.

Around us, I felt the readers go still.

_Jane._

_Jane..._

The small vampire's mind was unmistakable. Demetri had a clear and focused mind, but Jane was something else entirely. Days earlier, in the throne room, I'd been reluctant to look too closely, but now it bothered me less. In addition to her other deformities, she'd been turned too young, not young enough to touch upon the law against immortal children, but too young. Her thought patterns, never fully formed to begin with, had been unable to mitigate their blandness with maturity. She was what I had once thought myself to be—too young to be touched by romantic attachment. Jane's bother Alec and her master Aro were the only objects of her powerful, childish love.

And Aro, kindly or wisely, had repaid her with his favor. The results had been substantial: His most powerful slave was also his most devoted.

_That was uncalled for, Edward_, Aro thought sharply.

_Yes, Master_, I answered, but it was true all the same. Jane was a slave.

_When you have lived here longer, you will see that it is not so_,, he told me with firmness. On one level, he believed it. He _wanted_ to believe it. He did not enjoy my skepticism.

_Yes, Master_.

The door opened behind us.

"Jane my dear," Aro addressed her without looking up.

"Master," Jane whispered to Aro, inclining her head. Her eyes were flickering back and forth between us. She didn't like that Aro would speak with me privately. She was upset enough by my presence here, with the attention that Aro paid me. She could take it all for all I cared. She'd be even more trouble if she knew just how obsolete I was about to make her, at least until her master tired of me.

He was in my head, but I was in his as well. He shared things with me because he couldn't hide them from me without great effort. Jane might be focused, but even if she had had my gift, she could not have done what I did, spoken and contributed, not even if Aro had shown her what he saw in the twisting threads of history.

"Richard sent me, Master," Jane said calmly. I saw in Aro's thoughts that that meant that she liked to be the one to bring him good news, however mild, though it had been a long time since she had had to do more than threaten for the privilege. I searched her thoughts, frowning as I saw images of filth and annoyance. I blinked. Oh. "The delivery that you asked for has arrived."

"Well," Aro said, smiling, turning to me. "It seems your food is here, young Edward."

I felt something in me that was only a little like anger. Anger was something that I remembered now.

_His food? So he isn't eating normal food. More for the rest of us, I suppose._

_What do they eat, anyway?_

_...once again asked the United States House of Representatives to review the Kyoto Protocol..._ Well at least someone was still working.

Jane's smile hadn't broken, but her mind was blank. No words formed, just a smooth, deep gray animosity. I turned my attention to Aro, but he was looking at me expectantly. He wanted me to ask. Out loud.

"May I bring Bella something to eat, Master?"

"That's probably best," he said, and all Caius's readers could hear his prudence and generosity. I had asked, and he had granted.

There was something else in this, something Aro was trying not to let me see...

"Edward," he said warningly.

_You will do as I instruct you_, he told me. And his instructions...

I saw that he would not go near her himself and nor would Caius or Marcus, not until they could be confident that she was safe—for them. There was a room that they used for things like this, a feeding chamber, but smaller than the central feasting hall. Marcus had designed it for times when only one or two of the Volturi needed to feed at once, but, with extra security, it would do for a newborn.

Extra security would consist of myself, Demetri, Felix and Jane.

Jane...

I remembered what it was like to sense bile rising in my throat. Aro wanted to know if Jane's gift would work on her. He wanted me to go to Bella and bring her to this chamber, and he wanted to know if Jane's gift would work on her.

I pulled my hand out of his ...or I tried to.

If Bella was no longer immune, then she could be released from her cell into Jane's supervision.

The system had worked in the past, I saw, producing quiet, obedient vampires. I could see what "obedient" meant to Aro. And he could see what I thought about it.

_Would you rather we kept her locked up?_

I thought back to the feeling of Jane's gift inside my veins. Today, I could appreciate that it had been painful without being flooded by guilt and regret. _Yes_, I answered without hesitation.

I couldn't help it, though. I thought about Emmett. I thought about Rosalie. When my sister had been new, we'd moved out of Rochester, gone to the mountains. We'd neither threatened her with pain nor confined her in a cage. She'd harmed no one after her one night of revenge.

_But this is Volterra_, Aro reminded me.

"Yes, Master," I repeated, "this is Volterra."

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It was Demetri who came with me this time, and I was glad of it. Though his thoughts were no kinder than Felix's, they were clear and focused. It was like fearing the cut of a whip while still admiring the whistling sound it made in the air. And Demetri had nothing to prove to me, at least not until he figured me out, and my new coldness had stymied him. He'd nearly had me set in his mind as a hothead, impulsive but predictable. He couldn't tell if I was sulking, changed or if the fury of those first thirty-six hours had been a fluke.

His eyes still followed me, but I no longer felt them. He opened the door without comment.

"It's me," I called.

There was a sound of sneakers on the stone, of denim against denim as someone got to her feet. I walked in.

Though I knew she had to be thirsty, her eyes only seemed brighter. I avoided looking at them. Her hair was tangled. No one had thought to give her a comb. I would, I resolved. Her clothes were a mess, but I didn't know how to go about getting her new ones. One of the Volturi females was in charge of keeping the communal wardrobe nondescript and up to date, but I didn't yet know her name or whether I would be allowed to touch the collection of women's clothes to find something in Bella's size.

I tried to see if she seemed calmer, but her face was as much of a mask, as always.

I held out my hand, hoping she'd take it, but she only watched me, as if she didn't know what the gesture meant.

"Edward," she said. I tried to identify the emotions in that beautiful stranger-voice. Hope? Fear? It was useless. She was watching me intently, as if she were trying to read the answer to some question on my face. I tried again to read her thoughts. There was nothing, as I'd expected. I could only guess that she wanted to know why I was here.

"They brought us something to eat—" I could see the tension build as her hands drew back from her knees and her mouth opened to speak or shout. "—It's not human," I said quickly, thinking back to Jane's memories. "I think it's pigs. They don't taste like much, but they'll take the edge off."

She calmed down.

She calmed down...

I thought of Emmett and Rosalie, of the hundreds of newborns that Jasper had helped to foster.

"Edward, what is it?"

"Nothing," I said, pulling myself out of my memories. Nothing bad anyway. Calm was good. I could attest to that. I held out my hand again. "Come on, you need to eat."

She didn't respond right away. Not wanting to meet those eyes, I watched her lips. I saw the corner of her mouth twist slightly, the way my Bella's had when she was upset.

"I don't..." She looked away, pressing her lips together.

"I know," I said, even though I didn't. "But once you've eaten you'll be able to think more clearly."

She nodded, slipping her near hand into mine.

"We're not alone," I warned her quietly.

"I know," she said.

Demetri was waiting for us in the hallway. He was leaning against the wall, as casual as a man waiting for a bus. "Lead the way," I said.

Demetri didn't raise an eyebrow. He also didn't move. "Oh no," he said, thoughts fixed on his unprotected back, "after you."

I shook my head and started down the hall, feeling Demetri watch and follow. Aro had told him to watch Bella, but now that she was no longer an anomaly, no longer human, he was more interested in me. There was nothing to be done about that.

Bella kept a death grip on my hand. It was nearly painful.

"I've been doing what you said," she told me. I waited for her to explain. "You know, with my memories." Except they weren't really her memories. She shook her head. "Edward, I keep ending up back..." she stopped. Rather, her words stopped.

"I should have thought of that," I said. "I'm sorry." It was true. I'd been concerned for my newborn's physical safety, but I'd forgotten about the long term—and the fact that she was trapped in a cell with nothing to do but think about the fact that she'd butchered an innocent woman three days earlier. For her to be safe in Volterra, she'd have to make herself useful. I'd seen flickers in Aro's thoughts of his plans for Bella, and it would be better for her if she had no gift. Better to draw Jane's malice than Aro's attention. But she would still need to make herself useful to the guard because, as long as I was here, they weren't going to let her go.

The library would be the best place for Bella, if we could persuade Aro that her gift was of no real use elsewhere. But she'd have to do more than just be able to read.

"Learn Cantonese," I told her. "Mandarin too if you can manage it."

"Chinese?" she asked, looking up at me.

"You can do it," I told her. "I'll bring you the books. You don't need to sleep any more. You'll have time to study." And her new mind would take to it. My Bella had always loved to read. Perhaps this one would too. Perhaps she'd like Chinese poetry once she learned enough to hear its beauty.

"I can try," she said. She nodded, her smooth mask of a face blank, as always. "But why Chinese?" she asked me.

I stopped. Should I... But there was no reason not to tell her.

"Because Aro thinks there will be a war."

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drf24 columbia. dot edu


	11. Ch 10 Feeding

It is Stephanie Meyer who wrote the four and a half _Twilight_ books, but I hope that my fellow fans will enjoy this following chapter.

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"It lasted through the morning. He walked silently beside me, never seeming to actually look at me." -- Bella, _New Moon_

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He'd been here.

A week ago, I would have been sure that it had all been a dream, my imagination or another one of my pathetic hallucinations, but all of my memories of the past five days were sharper than razor wire. Edward had been here in this room. We'd spoken. He'd held me while I'd tried to cry. Felix had nearly ripped one of his arms out of its socket. It seemed callous of me, but this room was more real than Phoenix, Forks, the city that I could hear above me or anywhere else I'd ever been. Not one word, not one hair of him had faded. I could remember every breath he'd taken, the feel of his hand against mine when he'd finally left, the sound the door had made when it had let him out, when it had first let him in, when it had opened that first time and I'd been so sure for just a second that someone had come to let me out, but instead they... they...

Another chunk of my wall crunched away under my fingernails as I blinked, staring into the empty rock. I had to keep my mind off it. I wanted to forget, but I couldn't. I _couldn't!_

I felt like a tennis ball bouncing back and forth inside a box, never losing its energy. I could think impossibly fast, and there were only two things to think about. I felt like a rat running back and forth in a tiny cage. I felt like a powerful new being locked in a cell.

If I didn't keep my mind off it, I'd fly apart. My mind was racing. I should have felt sick to my stomach. I should have felt my heart pound. My skin should have broken out in a cold sweat. I had the terrible sense that I would never feel any of those things again.

I jammed my eyes shut and concentrated as hard as I could on Renee and Phil's wedding day. The flower girl, Phil's little niece, had stumbled in the aisle and spilled half the rose petals. I'd felt like part of the family already.

Maybe the problem was that I'd been trying to think about pleasant things. Maybe that was why it didn't work. So far, I'd followed Edward's advice and played my human memories over and over in my mind. The clean light in Phoenix, the green dampness in Forks. Gran. My childhood. Renee and Charlie. Every moment I'd spent with Edward from that first glance across the cafeteria to that horrible, beautiful moment when he'd turned me. Alice. Angela. Hunting motorcycle parts with Jacob. Maybe I had to think about something that would freak me out but only a little, release some of the right kind of energy.

Charlie. Yes, that would do it. By now, Charlie would have come home and find me gone. I counted the days in my head. Way before now, actually.

I forced myself to imagine my dad reading the slapdash note I'd left him. He wouldn't have waited. By now, posters with "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?" would be on every telephone pole in Forks, every police station corkboard in the State of Washington. He'd have called every number he knew, all the fake contact numbers and mail forwarding addresses the Cullens might have left behind. He was probably in Los Angeles now, trying to brother or bully some poor, unsuspecting member of the LAPD into putting out an Amber Alert. Never mind that I was already eighteen.

I pictured him there, in the piercing-bright sun and awful traffic of the sprawl. He wouldn't show it, not there, but I knew his heart would be breaking.

And he would be safe. I finally understood what Edward had meant. As long as he was looking in the wrong place, nowhere near Volterra or vampires, then he would be safe. Maybe one day it would be all right to send him some letter, some story to let him know I was still alive, even if he never saw me again. For now, I'd have to be satisfied that he was safe ... and probably hounding answers out of the only person who could possibly have known where Alice and I were going.

Poor Jacob.

Yep. That did it. If there was anyone who would be more worried about me than Charlie, it would be Jacob. He'd known what was waiting for me here in Italy. He'd have to face not only Charlie but his dad and the rest of his pack. The wolves were supposed to save human lives. Would they blame Jacob for letting me go or would they accept that it had been my choice? Would he blame himself?

What would he do when he saw me again?

He would see me again. Maybe it was wishful thinking. Maybe my weirdly perfect new brain still had enough flaws to let me get a nice, thick denial going, but I felt sure that I would see him again. I was Bella and he was Jacob, and we were supposed to be in each other's lives.

But it was sort of his job to kill vampires who came sniffing around Forks and La Push. And I didn't exactly have a clean record, not since...

—It was easier to pull myself back when I didn't have as far to go. Thinking about Jacob made me feel like a piece of leftover rat leather, but I was calm.

Why hadn't I told him that I really had meant to come back? Why hadn't I told him how much he meant to me? If he hadn't been who he was, I would have let the voice in my mind lead me down a very different path. Like a Will'o'the'Wisp, the shadow Edward haunting my brain would have drawn me out until I was too far gone for anyone to help. There wouldn't have been enough of me left to come to Volterra with Alice, not if we meant to do any good.

Jacob had saved me, and that meant that he'd saved Edward too. And for that, I would never stop loving him. For that, I had to remember, if only so I could make things right if I ever saw him again, if only so I could thank him. And now here he was, drawing me back from the brink all over again, and he wasn't even really here.

The hours passed. Like I was back swimming through the surf beneath the cliffs, I began to pull my way out of my own head. Reality creeped in. Unfortunately, so did boredom. Now that I wasn't freaking out any more, I could really appreciate the fact that I was stuck in a cell with nothing to do. I counted the scratches on the door, trying—successfully this time—not to think about how they'd gotten there. I felt the contrasting textures of the steel and stone that made up my dark little cage. I tried to mentally measure the angles of the steel lattice that covered the room's one light fixture—and then I tried to figure out how they got in there to change the bulb, all interspersed with my now infuriatingly managable worrying about Charlie and Jacob and Edward.

I closed my eyes and listened. My hearing was better now. I knew that I could hear all the way to the city outside, so I tried to focus on separating out the sounds. Was that rushing noise traffic or water in the pipes? I could tell that there were people speaking a few floors away, but I couldn't make out any words. And footsteps... Nothing helped.

Now I felt like a spider stuck under a glass, all quick, needle feet, and nowhere to put them.

Eventually, the sounds changed direction, separating from the distant din of the town. Footsteps. I listened again. Two pairs. All the muscles in my back had gone tense before I realized that I couldn't hear any heartbeats. Vampires, then. I inhaled but smelled nothing but dust and a faint sweetness that was probably just me. I considered getting up, pounding on the door to ask who was there as if I were the intruder. I took a breath, reminded again that it couldn't calm me. Whoever was coming was coming.

"It's me."

He hadn't shouted. With the door in the way, he was soft as a whisper. But his voice went through me like a velvet lightning bolt. I got to my feet and brushed rock flakes off my clothes. What was the etiquette for when your ex-boyfriend-come-vampire-mentor came to visit you in your medieval holding cell? I didn't have time to wonder before the door scraped open, and there he was, the edges of his his medium-gray cloak brushing his ankles as he stepped toward me.

I froze in place.

If I hadn't known that he didn't need to sleep, I'd have thought that he'd been kept awake for days as some kind of torture program. But that wasn't the worst of it. His eyes were hovering somewhere near my hands, and his face was completely blank. I'd seen that look before. I'd seen that look before, back in those horrible days just before he'd left Forks.

He didn't say anything, just reached out with one hand. It took me a minute to realize that he wanted me to take it and come with him somewhere, that that was what the gesture was supposed to mean. It had looked half-done, as if he were only going through the motions. He hadn't even been looking at me.

"Edward," I said carefully, not sure what to say. "How are you?" would never cut it and "Oh my God, tell me you weren't waterboarded" would probably just make things worse.

He breathed in and explained. "They brought us something to eat—" I tried to clench down the memories before they could scatter me again. Even so, his next words were almost lost against the roaring backdrop of my thoughts. "—it's not human. I think it's pigs. They don't taste like much but they'll take the edge off."

I focused on that. _It's not human. It's not human. It's not human_. I thought of Jacob and Charlie, used them as a stepping stone back to myself. It worked. I nodded and met Edward's eyes. He was staring at me as if I'd just built a suspension bridge out of feathers.

"Edward, what is it?" I asked.

"Nothing," he answered quickly. He held out his hand again. "Come on, you need to eat."

I felt a burning in my throat and realized he was right. I was ravenous. But I'd only felt this hunger once before and that hadn't ended well. I didn't want to... "I don't..."

"I know," he said, in his velvet-rich voice. And even in its coldness it was still so perfect. I closed my eyes. "But once you've eaten, you'll be able to think more clearly," he promised.

I nodded my head. I reached out and took his offered hand, holding onto it like a lifeline as I stepped out of my cell for the first time in my new life.

"We're not alone," he whispered.

"I know," I said. I'd heard two sets of footsteps, and there was a scent on the air that wasn't his.

Demetri was waiting for us in the hallway, lean and menacing. This was the first time I'd been near him since that day in the gathering hall. He was still a wicked hatchet of a man, but I could see his edge more sharply now. This vampire was far, far more dangerous than Felix. His deep red eyes didn't miss a thing.

Edward seemed to be sizing Demetri up, making a decision. It cut me how well I knew him, even now. I waited for him to speak, to tell the other vampire whatever it was that he was preparing in his mind. Instead, he turned away, pointed his eyes toward the end of the hall, and slid his arm around my waist. I nearly jumped out of my skin. It wasn't the gentle embrace I remembered from our meadow near Forks. It wasn't the steady anchor from days earlier. I knew this too. I could practically see him posing stiffly as Charlie took our picture.

He was still going through the motions, making a show of loving me, but why? There was no reason for him to make me think he loved me. I came to a the answer before I'd even fully comprehended the question: The show was not for my benefit. I wasn't his audience. He wasn't trying to convince me. He was trying to convince Demetri. This only left me more confused. What would Demetri care?

We had to talk. We'd had to talk ever since Alice had told me he was on his way to Italy, but now there was another thing to work out. I would tell him that he didn't have to pretend with me. I would demand to know what the hell he thought he was trying to pull.

"Lead the way," Edward was saying to Demetri.

"Oh no," he answered. His voice was richer now too, as layered as Edward's, but menacing instead of soothing. "After you."

I didn't know where we were going, but Edward seemed to. Turning my back on Demetri was like turning my back on a ravening bear. It made my whole spine prickle, and I had to be hurting Edward with the way my hand was clamped on his. I knew I had to distract myself again.

"I've been doing what you said," I told him. "You know, with my memories." I wasn't sure why I'd gone to this. Was I back in third grade? Did I want a gold star? "Edward, I keep ending up back..." I shut my mouth. Great going, Bella. Just great.

"I should have thought of that. I'm sorry," he murmured into the top of my head. He paused, and for a moment the only sound was our matched footfalls against the floor. "Learn Cantonese," he said, "Mandarin too if you can manage it."

I blinked. "Chinese?" I asked. Edward's face was emotionless. This had been a calculated decision, something thought rather than felt.

"You can do it," he said, as if that could possibly be why I was so confused. "I'll bring you the books. You don't need to sleep any more," he reminded me. "You'll have time to study."

"I can try," I said, still skeptical. "But why Chinese?"

Edward paused again, his eyes fixed on something near the end of the hallway.

"Because Aro thinks there will be a war," he told me.

The footfalls behind us stopped. Mine almost did as well, but a microscopic tug from Edward kept me moving. This had been planned, I realized.

"What in hell are you talking about?" Demetri called from behind us.

Edward turned and fixed him with that same indifferent gaze. Beneath his smoothness, he seemed to be appraising something. Demetri's eyes bored into Edward like a chisel into ice.

"China," Edward said, as if that explained everything. "It has a gender gap of about thirty million girls."

I'd read that same thing in the newspapers. Back in Phoenix, Mr. Cummings had mentioned it in history class when we'd gotten to the seventies and China's one-child policy. Because male children were so important, lots of couples had either aborted female fetuses or neglected the girl babies, resulting in a lot more boys than girls. But what did that have to do with war?

"Aro's... seen patterns in history," Edward went on. I looked sideways into his face, the black of his thirst blocking the depth of him from me. I'd been trapped in a cell for the better part of a week, but Edward had been out here. Things had happened to him. What had he seen? "Whenever a society, whether it's a village or an empire, has large numbers of young, unmarried men, the chance of armed conflict goes up. If they're young married men, it doesn't work. Married men are more settled. If the young men are unemployed or unoccupied, war becomes more likely still.

"They're already starting to feel it," Edward explained. "Stories about young men who can't find partners and about young women kidnapped from other parts of the country have been in the Western news for some years now." He shook his head. "This is only the edge. The men who'll face the worst of it are only boys now, but it's working its way upward through their demographics. In fifteen or twenty years, China will have literally millions of young men on its hands."

I let the idea settle into my brain. Mr. Cummings had never gotten into anything like this.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Edward turn his head toward me, just barely. His mouth gave a microscopic twitch, as if he'd been going to bite his lip but then stopped himself. It was strange to me. I'd never thought of Edward as fidgety. Was he truly agitated or had I simply been unable to see these tiny gestures before?

"It's not certain yet," he said. Somehow, I got the impression that he'd said this same thing before, to others or to himself. "It can be avoided, but it would take drastic measures. China will either have to import large numbers of women, export large numbers of men, experience unprecedented economic growth—"

"Or invent a new industry," Demetri finished.

_Or find something else for all those people to do,_ I thought. I pictured monasteries full of monks like in Ben Cheny's martial arts movies. But thirty million men?

That was the first time I truly noticed my new mind at work. I found myself racing through all the different possibilities, almost effortlessly considering the likelihood of each one: A new industry? More like a new industrial revolution. Export men? More like tell them they were being rocketed off to space colonies but really vaporize them on the launch pad. Monastaries? Putting them all in an army did seem like the obvious outcome. But what if this didn't mean that China would invade other countries? What if it meant that different parts of China would go to war against each other? My mind raced again. I didn't know that much about China. In the movies, they always made it seem like a homogenous, unified country, but how could it be? It had a billion people! I knew that Lenin and Stalin had both tried to turn the U.S.S.R. into one unified country—Soviets instead of Russians and Ukranians and Georgians—sometimes using drastic and brutal measures. I also knew that, in the end, it hadn't worked. Surely Mao and his successors had tried something similar. What if it hadn't worked either? Even if no other country became involved directly, China still had trade relationships with almost everyone. A civil war would mean that the U.S. and Japan and France and England would all have to take sides. It would be just like...

I felt cold.

Had Aro just predicted World War Three?

Edward nodded at Demetri. My mental coalescence had gone unnoticed. "So no matter which of these things happens," he said, still not looking at me. "China is going to be important over the next fifteen to thirty years."

"Chinese," I finished quietly. I would learn Chinese. And Italian. And Russian. _And Quileute._ And anything else that I could. I realized with a pang that I would never go to college. My mother had always impressed on me how important it was to go to college, and now I never would.

Of all the ways to become a high school dropout. Kidnapped by vampires...

Edward's arm was still around my waist. I realized with a start that it was the same one that Felix had nearly ripped off the last time I'd seen him. Almost without meaning to, I took in his pace, his posture. He wasn't carrying himself any differently from usual. It looked as if the injury had never happened.

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

Edward nearly looked at me, confused, then looked away. "Does what hurt?"

"Your arm," I said. I didn't want to say too much out loud about what had happened. I didn't know if Demetri knew.

"No..." he trailed off. "No, it's fine now."

The hallways couldn't really have been that long, but the walk seemed to take forever. Edward didn't look at me once. Finally we stopped outside a wood and metal door. It wasn't anything more or less to look at than any other, but I could hear something inside. Oh there were sounds that I recognized from the movies as being those a pig would make, and there were others that were probably the sounds of hooves on stone, but there was another...

Heartbeats... And not human. He'd promised, so they couldn't be human, could they? My mind ran off ahead of me again. Hot... wet... Good God, I was so thirsty. Would there be enough?

"Three?" I breathed without thinking.

"Six," Edward murmured beside me. It didn't seem at all strange that he knew what I'd been talking about. His eyes were so dark. I felt my own throat throb in sympathy. He had to be dying of it. Even then, though, I couldn't help but hope there would be enough for both of us. Six... Was that a lot?

Edward took a deep breath and held it. I could see the tension in his neck and in the shadows under his eyes. Somethng was bothering him, and it wasn't our food. There were more vampires inside, but I hadn't learned to separate their scents yet. Whoever was in there, it was making Edward extremely tense. Caius? My memories of Caius were agitating enough, but hadn't he said that none of the elders wanted to come near me—and that was something he'd have to explain—until I was safe?

Edward's jaw set. He seemed to decide something. While Demetri waited behind us, he put his hand on the door handle and pulled. The solid wood must have weighed hundreds of pounds, but Edward moved it easily. But I didn't have time to be awed by his strength. There was too much going on inside that room.

There were animals inside, and I could hear the blood pulsing heavily through them, though their scents were perfectly unappetizing. Felix was here, and from the expression on his face he wasn't happy about it. There was also another vampire whom I didn't recognize.

And there was Jane.

Her eyes were a deep red now. Unlike Edward and me, she'd eaten recently. Somehow that made the danger of her seem more more concentrated. Her eyes were fixed on me and she was smiling. That same damned smile.

I could feel my emotions taking over, rising like a sudden hurricane. What she'd done to Edward. What I'd thought she'd been going to do to Alice. I felt my breath come rapidly as Edward shifted his grip to my wrist and pulled me behind him.

"It won't be necessary," he said quickly. "Aro said to tell you to wait another few days."

One fraction of my mind recorded Edward's words, filed them away for some time when I could ask him what he was talking about. The rest of me was watching Jane. Her smile was turned toward Edward now.

"You're lying," she said simply, and every muscle in his body went tense.

The next few seconds blurred together, even for me. Edward's jaw locked open silently as both his knees hit the floor. The feel of his sleeve against my fingers as he trembled and let me go. The smug tightness underneath Jane's eyes as her smile never faltered.

The next thing I knew there was a startled yelp, too high and light to have been mine. I could feel vampire skin under my hands and something was making a noise, an awful crunching, ripping, tearing—

Three pairs of hands jerked me back and I felt pain for the first time since waking up in this house of monsters. I struggled, kicking my feet. I had to finish! Why wouldn't they let me _go_?

"It's all right," someone was whispering, but it wasn't. The voice was too cold, too empty. That voice had given me nightmares like nothing else in the world.

Jane hissed. I hissed back. She wouldn't get away from me!

"You'd better go," the cold voice said. Jane snarled again. Edward gave what I swore was an exasperated gasp, his arms still clamped like steel girders around my waist. "You've done what you meant to, haven't you?" he half-shouted.

Jane glowered and took a step toward me. I still couldn't move my arms.

"Don't," Edward warned her. "I _will_ let her go if you attack her, Jane." I snarled. He should have been letting me go _now_! I felt his grip loosen—though the other two were strong as ever—and I nearly got free as Jane slunk out of the room.

With her gone, the rest of the world started to come back. Edward. Edward but two other people.

Behind my left shoulder, someone chuckled deeply. "You're in for it now, freak," said Felix.

"That's as may be," Edward answered calmly. "But it's not your concern."

Felix laughed again, letting go of my arm. I felt Demetri let go of my right. Edward held on a little longer, but,as I came back to myself, I felt his arms slide back to his sides.

Slowly, I put together what had happened. Jane had used her gift on Edward, and I had completely freaked out, just like I had the week before. Except this time, I'd been able to do something about it. I felt the corner of my mouth tug upward, remembering the look on her face. Jane had _not_ been expecting that.

I looked back at Edward. Somehow he seemed less tense. Was this what he'd been worried about? But for that to be true, he'd have to have—

He'd have to have known, I realized as Edward avoided my eyes. Edward had known what Jane had been going to do. He'd lied to her to get her to stop. But... But he'd know what she'd been going to do and he'd taken me by the hand and brought me here anyway.

Something was cold inside me. The air seemed warm, but inside, I'd gone cold.

"Bella," Edward was saying. "Bella you need to eat."

Did I? My thoat flared. Yes, it seemed like I did.

"I don't..." I couldn't talk right, not now. Not for too many reasons.

"Yes you do," Edward said. "Feeding is natural. Just follow your instincts."

I looked around the room again. Three other vampires were guarding six domestic pigs, all in assorted states of terror from the fight. They'd done what pigs did when they were frightened. I didn't think I'd ever seen—or smelled—anything less appetizing.

It must have shown on my face. "I know," Edward said. "It's not ...ideal, but it will take the edge off."

Felix shook his head. "I can't believe you can eat these stinking things," Felix announced. "You might as well eat _this_." I looked down to see him shove a pile of filth with his boot.

"Ignore him," Edward whispered, barely moving his lips.

I couldn't. Felix was unignorable. I realized that Felix and Demetri were going to see Edward feed, something he'd never once let me do (not until today, anyway). I'd always gotten the impression that feeding was a private thing, that losing control was supposed to be among friends.

Edward put both hands on my face, stroking my cheekbones gently with his thumbs. I closed my eyes. I couldn't help it. "Don't breathe," he said. "Just listen."

So I did. I could hear the other vampires' soft movements, the distant buzz of Volterra, someone two floors up having a loud conversation about football, and I could hear... Yes, the heartbeats. I focused on them, feeling the venom pool in my mouth.

"That's it," Edward whispered, and I didn't care if he or I or both of us were as cold as Antarctica. My food was hot, and it was right here.

I'd jumped on the nearest animal before a second had passed. The screams of the others echoed in my head as my teeth cut through skin and tendon. The poor thing struggled, but I held on, swallowing and stretching and sucking until there wasn't anything left.

I got to my feet slowly. I felt Edward's hand on my elbow. It wasn't necessary. I wasn't really going to fall, but...

They were staring at us. Suddenly I felt exposed, naked. I'd just done something completely primitive and three strangers had seen. I pressed my lips together and looked away. Edward didn't seem to care. His blank, dead eyes were steered toward me. If he cared that anyone else was there, he didn't show it. "Comes naturally," he said again.

I opened my mouth to ask him—Hell, anything. Why I was still hungry. Whether they were supposed to taste like that, but Felix was chuckling softly behind me, and I couldn't stand the idea of him hearing, knowing any more weakness from me than he already did.

Edward looked away, down to the side, avoiding my eyes as usual.

It was strange to watch Edward feed from so mundane an unpleasant a creature as a pig when he'd told me stories about wild elk and mountain lions. Even so, I couldn't take my eyes away. He was impossibly graceful, striking his prey like a snake as his full lips parted over his teeth. So quickly that I almost missed it, I saw him strike the animal on the back of the head just before he bit down. The creature was so stunned that it hardly struggled. It was probably less painful, less cruel.

I would try it, I resolved, picking another beast from the shrieking, panicking herd. Fingers curling precisely, I lunged. I heard a crunch and felt a sickening softness under the heel of my palm. The pig's legs twitched convulsively as I realized that I'd just shoved my hand halfway into the creature's brain. I clamped my mouth down on its throat in disgust, the feel of blood in my throat banishing all other thoughts from me.

It was as if every physical discomfort, aching muscles, itchy skin, sleepy brain, had been concentrated into one problem: my throat-burning thirst. Quenching it was like getting a back rub, a hot bath and a good night's sleep all in one. It coated my throat, filled my belly, and even if it didn't taste like....

I didn't need Jacob to pull me back this time. The blood in my mouth was too good. It was easy to think of nothing else.

And so we ate. Edward was gracious, telling me that he was content with two, leaving me four to myself. I was too thirsty to protest. I gave up on mercy, just concentrating on feeding without making a worse mess of things than I already had. The last one got an angle on me, jabbing at my chest with its sharp hooves as I pulled the life out of its body and into mine.

I stood up carefully. I felt... I was warm. I didn't just feel warm; I _was_ warm and from the inside all the way to my fingertips, which were—only for now, I was sure—not pale but pink and flushed, almost like real human flesh. I stared at my hands in amazement, turning them over. There was a dull gleam that told me that my skin would still sparkle if I were out in the daylight.

I felt something soft brush my shoulders and flinched away before I realized it was Edward leaning in close, as if to tell me a secret. I noticed with another start that he'd taken off his shirt, his gray cloak still rippling from the motion. He was pink too, I noticed, feeling something that reminded me of a blush in my cheeks. His neck and the smooth planes of his chest were flushed all the way down to where his waist disappeared into his beltline. Before I could ask him what he was doing, he'd slipped the spotless sleeves of his discarded shirt over my wrists and began tugging it into place.

What was going on? It wasn't as if I'd gotten cold. Why was—

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a patch of blue on the floor. My blue. I felt my fingers touch my lips as I realized that I'd lost my blouse while I was feeding. I'd been so caught up in the act that I hadn't heard the cloth tearing or felt the scrape of the stone floor against my sensitive skin.

Edward was naked from the waist up, and I was wearing his clothes... I felt the thought of it ripple through the fading warmth in my veins.

Except we weren't alone. That thought stopped the current. I couldn't see Felix from this angle, but the other vampire was watching me with an amused, appreciative gaze. Evidently, he thought this was funny. I tried not to shiver. Better funny than other things.

"I've got it," I said quietly to Edward, taking over the job with the buttons. He drew his hands away from the shirt, just barely, his eyes following my fingers on the cloth. He didn't step back to an ordinary distance, though, not touching me but as close as if he were. I was almost glad that the warmth from our meal was fading. I didn't want these men to see me blushing at the sight of Edward's perfect body.

"How do you feel?" he asked me.

I thought about how to answer. What would seem bland and non-commital to Caius's spies? "Full," I told him at last. But I was still hungry. I was still a little hungry. What did that mean? I needed to ask him, but I couldn't do it here.

His mouth opened a bit and then closed again. "I have to take you back now," he said at last.

I nodded, even though he wasn't really looking at me. "Okay," I said. I was the one who reached for his hand this time. He took it and I saw him nod to Demetri. The hactchet-faced vampire looked back at us. He hadn't missed a thing, I knew, but he wouldn't have wasted his time laughing or sneering. I might have questions, but Demetri would have more. Except Edward wouldn't want to answer his. I shivered. Demetri would make him answer anyway.

We stepped back toward the hallway. I didn't know who was going to clean up the pig bodies and the detritus of their stay, and I didn't care. If I hadn't just had the second worst week of my life just then, I would have hoped that they'd at least get the meat to a homeless shelter or to other people who could use it, but I didn't even know if they had those here in Italy or what they were called if they did.

As we left the room, Edward suddenly turned around and snarled. I twisted my chin over my shoulder just in time to see Felix's fingers twist around a scrap of my ruined shirt. My stomach clenched and I tasted blood in the back of my throat.

"What?" Felix asked of Edward. Then his red, greedy eyes focused on me. "Do you want it back?" he asked, holding out the scrap as if it were a flower in some nineteenth-century romance novel. Edward turned his head and stalked away, drawing me along with him. He didn't have to pull for me to keep up.

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	12. Ch 11 Unsaid

_Twilight_ and its three and a half sequels are the creation of Stephanie Meyer. I'm just having some fun. Also, I was spelling it "Demitri" for like nine chapters. Where were you on that, Internet?

EDIT: As of December 2009, the ending of this chapter has been significantly expanded.

EDIT: This chapter has undergone a moderate change as of July 2010.

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"Edward didn't speak. Maybe he was hoping I would sleep. Maybe he had nothing to say." –Bella, _New Moon_

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The blood cleared my head. I hadn't noticed how deep the thirst had gone. It had taken with it anything that passed for pain. I had lost my distractions. My grief hadn't abated by any means, but it had calmed. Once it stopped moving, I found I could carry its weight.

There was no need to move slowly this time. I could sense Demetri tracking us with his gift. He could tell where I was going and it gave him no alarm. He'd give Felix a piece of his mind, then follow us with the key. Bella and I were back at the cell within seconds.

We were alone together for the first time since...

I stopped in the hallway. I didn't want to put her back inside, not before I had to. She turned her head one way and then the other with a newborn's instantaneous movements, her eyes unfocused. I could tell she was listening.

"No one's coming?" she asked.

"Not yet," I answered truthfully.

She nodded her head, still staring off into space. Then she inhaled, as if to take a calming breath. "Edward—" She stopped.

I waited.

She shook her head. "There are so many things I want to ask you about."

"And they're all jumping around in your head like grasshoppers?" I asked. She nodded again. "That will go away. Well..." I checked, "it'll tone down a little." I closed my eyes, trying to remember Emmett and Rosalie. Carlisle had turned Esme while I had been off on my own, but I did have a few secondhand memories of her early days. I tried to remember my own pitfalls, my own questions and what Carlisle had done to answer them. I shook my head. The circumstances were just too different. Carlisle had taught me how to avoid the daylight and leave the city to feed. We wouldn't have that kind of freedom in Volterra.

"Edward..." she trailed off, her chime-like voice twisting like a child wringing its hands.

"Yes?" I asked. I had to sound welcoming. I had to sound calming.

"Why..." she trailed off again. "Why am I still hungry?"

I felt relieved. I did. It was an easy one. "Because you're young," I said.

I couldn't tell if my answer satisfied her or if she simply didn't want to ask again. Either way, she went quiet, staring into space, and I could tell she was thinking. I stopped for a moment and took her in. She was near the cell door but not leaning against it. She stood the way a pillar would stand, lifeless but elegant. She had no need of any extra support, and she had not yet learned to hide her stillness.

She'd asked about nothing but blood. What had I been hoping for? That her skin would turn soft and warm and she'd metamorphosize back into my Bella before my eyes? Fool... The Bella I had to worry about was standing in front of me. She was the only one I could still help.

She seemed to finish her train of thought, opening her mouth to speak as she lifted her head. I didn't look down in time. I got caught in those burning eyes, the branding memory of all I'd done.

I started to turn, but Bella was in front of me instantly, holding my face in her strong hands as she let out a gasp. I found myself unable to look away from the rings of iridescent scarlet where the deep brown should have been. The flames twitched back and forth as her brow furrowed, lurid and changing like the hell I'd damned her to. Was her soul there now or had it escaped?

"Red..." she whispered.

I tried to pry her hands off my face but her new strength was too much for me to oppose without bringing all of mine to bear. I finally turned my eyes away, but I could still feel hers. "That's normal. Newborns' eyes turn red," I managed at last.

"No, _you_," she insisted. Her hands slipped to my shoulders and I looked at her, willingly this time. "Edward," her jaw was tight, her expression... It was supposed to be concern. "...did they make you do it? Was that why you didn't want as many? Oh God, Edward, you can tell me."

Confusion overcame my reluctance. "Bella, what are you talking about?" I asked.

Bella closed her eyes, giving me a reprieve. I cast mine this way and that, wondering what could have upset her. "Edward," she tried again. "I'm not trying to be— If you can't talk about it, I understand."

I shook my head, wondering for a second if she'd lost touch. Through Jasper's memories, I knew that newborns were unstable and impulsive, but actual breaks with reality were rare. I took a step back, wondering what I was dealing with.

Then I saw my reflection in the shining brass of the lamp fixture. My hands fell to my sides.

There they were, so tiny that they were nearly swallowed in the haze of the dull metal. Human eyes never would have caught them. Most vampires wouldn't have noticed.

There were tiny flecks of dark red swirling like some non-missive liquid in my yellow eyes. For one cold moment, I remembered Alice's vision, but I dismissed the fear soon after. This wasn't the same thing, I knew. I'd seen it before.

"Edward?" Bella asked, squeezing my shoulder in what she probably thought was a gentle way,

"It's—" I stopped myself. It wasn't _nothing_ as I'd been going to say. Far from it. But how could I say it to her?

"I'm so sorry, Edward," she told me.

"It wasn't your fault," I repeated automatically, still watching the ghosts in my reflection.

"We can convince him," she said. "We'll find a way. We'll convince them to let us feed on animals from now on—" she winced. "I can't believe I said that."

I felt my mouth hang open as I stared into the kindness that I could finally see on her masklike face. She'd thought...

I chastised myself again. Whoever this girl was, she meant well, far better than I'd thought of her.

"You thought they made me feed on a human?" I asked.

She stared into my eyes and I swore I could see her tracking each tiny sliver as it moved along its microscopic path. "Didn't you?" she asked.

I shook my head. "Bella," I stared at her hands as I said her name. And it was her name. She had as much of a right to it as anyone. "Bella the blood is—" Not _hers_. It had belonged to the living Bella. "—the blood is from when I created you."

Her hands left my shoulders as she reached up to touch her own unmarked neck. The little that I could read of her expression slipped away. She was a mask again, and I could not tell what she was thinking.

"How long will it stay?" she asked at last. Her breathing had gotten heavier. How badly did this upset her, I wondered.

"Weeks," I said. After Phoenix, Bella's broken leg had been halfway healed before the traces of her inside me had melted away.

She nodded, taking another deep breath. "That's better," she said, a dark thickness coloring her voice. "Better me than—" She seemed to shudder. "—better me than just some..."

I shook my head. She'd rather I'd turned her, taken Bella Swan out of the world, then some stranger? Oh perhaps people at random didn't deserve such things, but half the humans serving the Volturi had souls as black as pitch. Better they'd given me one of them by far. This newborn didn't only have my Bella's memories; she was continuing along the path she'd left behind, her maddening selflessness, not that it was much comfort to me now. "You shouldn't be here," I whispered. It was true in so many ways. Not here in Volterra surrounded by these people and not... I closed my eyes.

She stepped close to me, right up against my skin before I even knew she was moving. Her arms were around my waist in what was probably meant to be a comforting hug. She would have to learn to slow her movements if she wanted Marcus to let her outside in the next ten years. But there would be time for that later, I thought. For now, we just had to wait until she wouldn't need that cell.

My eyes trailed across the scarred steel door. It hung open, exposing its pitted underbelly to the meticulously camouflaged hallway. I couldn't believe I was here. I couldn't believe I was doing this. Newborns needed to be kept from running wild, but putting this creature back inside her cage and turning the key felt like shoving a Monet edge-first into the soot behind a furnace. I closed my eyes, part of my mind noting the feel of her cheek against my collarbones.

It had to be done, I told myself. It was only for a while, and it had to be done. There was no keeping a newborn in a city otherwise. Back in Rochester, we'd kept Rosalie in one room until we'd been able to move to the less-populated Appalachians ...and of course, that still hadn't worked out so well. Before getting her out of the compound we had to worry about getting her out of that cell, which would mean reining in her newborn impulsiveness. Otherwise she'd be attacking...

Attacking...

My mind moved quickly. _Had_ she attacked anyone? Jane, of course, but not until after the venomous little minx had used her gift on me. And she'd gone after Felix, but again, that had only been after the fight had already started. She wasn't stable, I knew. I'd seen her agitation rise up like a cauldron of bubbling lead. But I'd also seen her calm herself down before she could spill over. At the time, it had only seemed a little strange. I shook my head. I had been assuming that she'd gone for her keepers' throats every time they'd opened the door, exactly like a hungry newborn confined in a ten-by-ten space would. But had it actually happened?

"Bella?" I asked.

"Hmm..?" Her face was buried against my chest. I almost winced in sympathy. We'd just spent fifteen minutes with a small herd of pigs. I'd managed to avoid the worst of it, but I knew I couldn't smell good.

"Bella, earlier, when you were upset..."

"Hmm..?" she sounded as if she couldn't truly hear me, her smooth cheek pressed against my collarbone as if she were listening for my heartbeat. "Bella," I said again, gently prying her arms away.

She blinked slowly, like someone waking from a light sleep. I looked away in time this time, watching her hands as her fingers dug into the folds of my light gray cloak.

"Is this..." she asked carefully. I wished that I could read her face, her voice, but they were as closed to me as her thoughts. "Is this normal?"

"Is what normal?" I asked. I shook my head. What kind of an answer was that? I could remember those first days. Her mind probably felt like it was still on fire. Her body moved in ways she wasn't used to. Oh, and the part about needing the blood of the living to survive. "You're a newborn," I told her. "You're going to feel things that you wouldn't have been able to imagine as a human."

She muttered something under her breath. Something about having been able to imagine this one _just_ fine.

"Bella," I said as patiently as I could, "I can't answer your question unless I know what you mean."

"So you don't..." she trailed off.

"I don't what?" I asked, still focusing on her hands. Her fingernails were jagged, barely worn smooth from where my Bella had bitten them down in the passenger seat of Alice's Porsche.

"Never mind," she said. Her voice... Was that disappointment or just weariness? I still couldn't tell. I considered pressing the matter but thought the better of it. I had my own questions, after all. "How did you—" I asked just as she opened her mouth and said "Can we—?"

"Can we..." she closed her eyes. Something seemed to move inside her skin. Whatever it was, the thought of it left her agitated. "I don't— I don't even know what I'm asking. You said no one's watching us right now?"

"No," I said. "We have a few minutes." Then Demetri or Felix would come to lock her in, and I would have to face Aro.

She looked back at me. It took a moment for me to see past the eldritch glow in her eyes to the open, almost pleading look they held. I felt her smooth fingers clasp my hand.

What could she—

Oh.

I didn't want to say it. I didn't even want to know it. Saying it made it more real, and it was too real already.

_Do it_, I told myself. _She's got to know. Get it over with._

"It wouldn't work. I'm sorry. We can't run away." She stood frozen in front of me for a moment. Then she closed her eyes and her expression faded back into nothing. I felt a pang of sympathy. She must have been hoping. Of course she'd hope that there was some chance of escape. "They'd only bring us back. It's not just people like Jane we have to worry about," I explained. "Demetri is a tracker, the best anyone's ever seen. He could find us anywhere. It would not take him long, and he would not come after us alone." _Or only after us_, but I could keep that part to myself for now. Aro wouldn't want Caius to harm or offend Carlisle, but technically, I was still a criminal, and the law could claim anyone who harbored me. At the very least, Caius would send Jane to ascertain that my coven truly knew nothing of my whereabouts. I had no intention of letting that happen. I had been irresponsible enough.

She breathed in and out. I could sense her body shaking but not nearly as much as when I'd told her that Alice had escaped—and this was far worse news. Even now, forced to face a terrible truth, she managed to hold it all back.

"How are you doing that?" I murmured, half to myself.

"Doing what?" she asked.

"You shouldn't be able to control yourself this well," I said. "Most newborns are wild. Their emotions build and build until they'll attack anything that moves."

Her chest gave a little heave, as if she were shaking off a spider.

"I think of..." she trailed away, "...things," she finished lamely.

She didn't want to tell me. I reached out and stroked on hand down her arm, feeling the smoothness of her body through the cloth of my shirt. But she was already there. It was uncanny.

I looked back at the cell door. If it wasn't necessary, then I didn't have to do it. If it wasn't necessary, then it wouldn't be right for me to do it.

"Bella, I want you to do something for me," I said carefully. I gently moved my hands to the sides of her arm, not restraining her, but getting myself into a position from which I could if the need arose. She was stronger than I was, and immune to my gift, but I was confident that I could slow her down until she came to herself.

"What?" she asked. Again, even this simple question should have given her some alarm. I could see nothing, nothing but the reflection of some imagined concern on her white mask of a face. Something about her seemed to have gone dark. One of her hands came up to brush my forearm.

I had to know how she was doing it, not some vague answer, but the real mechanics of it. It could be invaluable for our kind. It would fascinate Carlisle; he'd run it by Jasper and—

I squeezed my eyes shut. I remembered where I was. I realized exactly what I'd been asking. Telling me how she kept her mind off the things that made her want to lunge for my throat would be asking her to relive them. My curiosity was not as important as keeping her calm.

And if she told me how she was doing it, then Aro would know too. Perhaps that wouldn't be a bad thing. But I couldn't know and decide. But then ...Aro would know that I had had this moment, had decided whether or not to learn. He would know every question I asked in the silence of my mind, every answer that I discovered or worked out.

"Never... never mind," I said, relaxing my hold on her arms.

The glimmer of expression that I'd thought I'd seen dimmed and receded back into the stony symmetry of her face. I nodded to myself. If Aro wanted to know, he could just order me to come back here and find out. But this way, he'd have to go to the trouble. He wouldn't learn anything about her by accident. I would see to that.

I cast my mind back behind us. Demetri was thinking about the keys in his hand and the conversation he'd just had with Felix. Something about being less of a pervert. I smirked. Demetri didn't approve of Felix's interest in young Bella. He wasn't sure that she was "clean," that my own predilection for non-human foods hadn't tainted her somehow. Felix's own mind was beginning to understand what Demitri had said, for all that it would take some time to sink in. Whatever kept her safe. This whole coven could revile her as they reviled me so long as they did not do her harm.

It only made my duty easier.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Demetri is going to come to lock you in in a moment," I said. "Right now he's ...busy." I didn't want to remind her of Felix's unhealthy interest in her clothing, but the thought of going back into that cell was probably more than enough. Again, it should have upset her, but it didn't seem to.

"But we have a minute?" she asked hopefully.

"Just," I said.

She nodded, "Good, because we have to talk."

I felt my own mind go quiet. Of course she needed someone to talk to. Carlisle had been at my elbow almost nonstop for my first days. I had been so full of questions.

She was silent, as if expecting me to speak first. When I didn't, she pulled in a breath and did it herself.

"Tell me you're not going to try it again," she said boldly. A ripple of some deep emotion moved past her eyes and forehead as she took both my hands in hers. "Tell me you won't try to get yourself killed."

I must have stood there with my mouth open for a long minute, because she went on.

"I know we're in danger here. I just want to know that you won't let your guard down, that you won't let something slip on purpose." She was begging. _She_ was gently begging me not to do what I'd already sworn I wouldn't. "Because it wasn't your fault, Edward. I wasn't trying to kill myself, and even if I had been, that would have been my mistake." The words had a strange, rounded cadence to them, as if she had practiced them over and over. "You're not responsible for what happens to me."

"But I am." The words were out of me before I knew I'd said them. "Now," I corrected myself. "I am now."

"I don't mean this," she said, gesturing to her new body. I noted that the movements of her hand were as graceful as if she were plucking an orchid from its stem. The mortal Bella had had graceful hands too, for all that it didn't extend to her movements. I missed her so much that it was like a white-hot knife in my chest.

"It wasn't because—" I stopped myself. What could I say? That I hadn't been trying to kill myself out of guilt but rather because I was simply not willing to live in a world that did not have Bella Swan in it? Well, that had changed. She was gone, but here I was. It seemed to be an offense to her memory for me to go on living, but I would never attempt suicide again. This world was stuck with me and I was stuck with it.

And with this strangely kind new vampire, but that was hardly her fault. She hadn't asked to be dragged into existence and shoved into my dead beloved's body.

That would become my new mantra, I realized. _Not her fault. Not her fault._

I licked my lips, trying to figure out what to say. "I did feel guilty," I said. "I still do. But I won't try to kill myself again."

She was watching me. I could read the look on her face now. She was waiting for the rest.

"I promise," I said, taking her smooth hand in mine. I put my hands on her shoulders. I even managed not to flinch when I looked into her eyes. "I promise," I said firmly. "I am not going to leave you."

Something flickered across her face at that.

"What?" I asked.

" 'What?' " she asked. The flickering grew clearer. I'd said something wrong. The hand I was holding clenched into a fist, crushing painfully around my fingers. " '_What?_' " she repeated.

I searched her face for a clue, turning my attention to where her thoughts were supposed to be, but her mind was as impenetrable as the old Bella's, just as silent, just as—

Oh.

I shifted my hands to her shoulders. That day in the woods... I'd been trying to avoid thinking about it for the past seven months. This vampire had echoes of my Bella's memories, and that couldn't have been a pleasant one. My Bella had been a strong young woman. I was confident that she'd managed to get on with her life after my departure, but I hadn't exactly been kind—not in the short run, at least.

"Well I'm not," I told her. "You're my newborn. I turned you. I'd stay with you no matter how it came to happen."

She stared back at me. Time seemed to pass slowly. "For how long?" she asked.

"As long as you need." I said. It seemed like the best answer. _Not that I could go anywhere after that anyway._ A number of feelings flickered up inside me at that thought, but I beat them down again. This wasn't about me.

The momentary animation had left her face, but I was getting better at reading her minuscule cues. She was scrutinizing me carefully. Something I'd said had given her something to think about. And she did not seem to like it.

She stared at me for a long time. I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything. We needed to talk, but we also needed time to think about what to say. I closed my eyes. Just seeing her once every few days would not do. I had to convince Aro to let her out.

Behind us, in the hallways, a constellation of ice-clear thoughts began to move our way.

"Demetri is coming," I whispered as she looked away. "I will come back as soon as I can," I promised. "I'll bring you the books, but I don't think you'll need to be here much longer." The words stung my tongue like acid. I didn't want this kind, genuine creature to be locked away at all. Taking part in the process ran so counter to my nature that I felt as if I were trying to walk backwards on my hands.

Demetri did arrive, and he did lock Bella away. The rasp of the metal on stone as the door closed felt like a file wearing away at my heart. It just wasn't right. Once it was done, the other vampire turned his attention to me. I saw the words in his mind, but I waited for him to say them out loud. It was only polite.

"The Master wants to see you," he said.

"Which one?" I asked.

"All of them," he said.

I nodded my head, just as if he'd been answering a question about a football match, and followed him to the feeding chamber.

I took a breath, tasting the scents in the air. There was nothing for it. Even if I had wanted to run, Demetri already knew I was standing here. I closed my eyes and pushed the doors open.

The crowd was arranged like a tableau before me, a random but thick scattering of vampire faces lined the outer walls. I wondered if I should have been flattered that so many of my new brethren had showed up to watch. Caius and Aro stood forward, flanked by their guards. I remembered Adrienne from the library. Demetri took his place beside Felix at Caius's right hand. Jane smirked from Aro's shadow.

The silence hung in the air. If they were waiting for me to speak first, I was in no mood to oblige.

"Edward Cullen," said Caius, the harshness of his voice fracturing the space between us, "did you or did you not _lie_ to Jane about the orders given to her by Master Aro?"

I fought the urge to look at Aro. I knew it wouldn't help.

Marcus was seated near the back of the room, watching the proceedings with mild interest. He was thinking about the brightness and depth of the bond he'd dected between Bella and me the day I'd turned her. _If anything, they should be surprised that the boy did not attack Jane himself_, he thought. I shook my head. That was what I'd done last time, but she had been Bella Swan last time, the love of my existence, not this incomprehensible if somewhat sweet newborn. There was a difference between the desperate love that I felt for the old Bella and my resolution to do right by the new one.

The three elders were staring at me. The whole room was waiting for an answer.

Somewhere, there was the exact right thing to say. Somewhere, there was a combination of words that would, if not dispel the situation, then at least give me the best possible outcome. I couldn't lie about what had happened. Jane herself had too much credit with the elders, and there had been too many witnesses.

Keeping my eyes fixed on Caius I turned my attention to Aro, almost hoping that there was something specific that he wanted me to say.

I saw that it would be different this time. I knew that without even touching Aro's thoughts. This wasn't some carefully plotted defiance like helping Alice escape. This wasn't some involuntary impertinence in the course of our mental conversations.

No, I had disobeyed him publicly this time. There had been witnesses.

...just as there were witnesses now, I thought, eying the sea of pale, red-eyed faces.

"It won't happen again," I said carefully.

Aro gave a gentle, indulgent smile. "Edward..." he said comfortingly. "We both know that you don't mean that."

"Your dedication to your newborn is commendable, Edward Cullen," said Caius, "but it must never come before your duty to the coven."

He'd used my name deliberately, reminded the people watching that I was the newcomer, the outsider, the freak from the cult out west.

Jane smiled. So did Caius. "Since your offense was against Jane," he said. "It is only fitting that she carry out your punishment."

I remembered what it felt like to have my heart pound. I could see the trap closing in on me from two sides. And the damned thing was completely unnecessary. My feet were chained to the ground. Demetri was there, but I wasn't going to run.

Aro turned his thoughts toward me. He couldn't hear me, but he knew I could hear him. Aro needed to punish me. He needed to be seen to punish me. These were two different things. On one level, he needed the guard to know that I was not being granted lenience, that, though he might have made a pet of me, he had not made me the sort of pet that would be permitted to bite his attendants.

More importantly, though, he wanted _me_ to know that I couldn't get away with lying to my fellow guards about their orders. Aro had meant what he'd told me when we'd struck our bargain—he wanted me to trust him. That meant trusting that I would not be able to get away with disobedience. On this level, he didn't want to punish me, but he knew that it was probably necessary. Deep down, I could admit that he had a point. That was how my personality worked. Aro had seen the deepest parts of my being, and he knew that I could be bent to his will in this way, that I would slowly break under his firm hand, and he could reward my obedience instead. He also knew that there was only one way to truly punish me.

I shook my head. I couldn't help it.

_Not her_, I thought, forgetting for the moment that he could not hear me. _Leave her out of it_.

And the crowd saw the gesture, saw the naked fear in my eyes. They just didn't know what I was reallyafraid of.

My eyes and thoughts were fixed on Aro. I barely saw Caius nod to Jane.

I wasn't ready this time. A shout left my throat as I went down. With what little thought I was able to muster, I realized that it might go better for me if I didn't fight the urge to scream. After all, this punishment was for show, and there was no Alice here who needed me to be strong. There was no Bella here who was frightened enough as it was. There was only me.

I forced my throat closed against the power of Jane's gift. It was harder now. It was so much harder this time, but I managed to keep silent. My hands clenched and unclenched in my hair. My legs beat at the floor like a retarded monkey's, but I kept silent.

Only an illusion, Jane's gift was only an illusion, I managed to remind myself as someone pulled my left hand out behind me. I felt like I was in perdition itself, but then it would be over and—

"Aah," the sound left my throat, but it was nowhere near as loud as the crunch from my left hand as Felix crushed it between both of his.

_That's more like it._/ Felix's thoughts were like the sickly-sweet trail of a slug across my mind. _Stuck-up freak..._/ I tried to tug my arm free, but Jane's gift had stolen control of my limbs. I couldn't even turn and watch as Felix moved on to my fingers.

And then it was all gone, and I lay gasping at Aro's feet.

I rolled onto my back, cradling my injured hand. I forced my eyes open, forced myself to look.

My skin didn't bruise or swell, but it didn't look much like a hand any more. Three of my fingers were sticking out at unnatural angles. Some echo of my medical training came back to me, and I realized that the bones needed to be straightened and set or else they would heal twisted.

I lowered my hand to my lap, placed my free arm behind me and tried to sit up. Caius nodded to Jane again and my back arched with the force of her attention.

I pulled my mind into line. I forced myself to think. Aro was doing this for show, and I had no reason to keep fighting him. It would only make things worse for me.

It would wear me down. I could see it as clearly as if I were Aro, looking dispassionately into my own soul. I wasn't as brave as I'd thought I was. I wasn't as strong as I'd thought I was. In time, I would come to fear Jane, just like all the other vampires here. I would flinch when her name was spoken. I would duck and jump and do whatever I had to avoid feeling this pain again because, one day, I would break.

But I hadn't broken yet.

_What do you want?_ I threw the thought at him. He couldn't hear me, not now, nor would he risk touching me while Jane's power did its work, but he knew me well and he'd provoked me well and I could see that he'd guessed where my thoughts were.

_So you don't want little Bella to share your punishment?_

I shook my head. To the other vampires who'd gathered to watch the spectacle of my punishment, it would seem like a thrash of my head, but Aro knew it for what it was.

_Then you must see to it that you earn no more_. _I do not want to ruin the newborn, but I will if that is the only way to reach you._

I nodded. Or at least I thought I did. I did know what he wanted, I realized. He wanted a change in my essential character. He wanted more than token obedience. He wanted me to be the sort of man who could put his duty to the Volturi and its vision before all else.

That wasn't me. Not yet. But I would break. It was only a matter of time.

The air around us was filled with low snarls and hisses. I could hear the whispering, shouting, muttering thoughts of the crowd. I held onto them like a life preserver as Jane's gift kept pushing me under. Many of these vampires had joined the guard for the privilege of attacking and punishing their own kind. The rest of them had developed a taste for it over time. For the time being, though, they were content to watch with Jane or Felix as their proxy. At heart, we were a brutal race. Or perhaps we taught ourselves to be brutal. Either way, the delight that snapped through the crowd at the sight of Jane's gift ripping away at another vampire was bright and palpable. Most of them had been in my position at one time or another—all of them feared it—but there was no compassion, only a sense that this was how things _were_. Punishment was a source of entertainment here. I was better than anything they'd find on TV.

_How does he stand it? Why doesn't he cry out?_

_It's better when Felix does it alone._ The vampire imagined our hulking covenmate pressing his boot against my shoulder blade, the metallic snapping as he broke my arm. It seemed that damaging arms was a bit of a signature move for him.

_He kicks his feet against the ground almost like that Ukranian bleater did last year._

_That poor boy..._ I blinked, casting my eyes and ears around for the owner of that voice. It hadn't been kindness I'd heard. It was fear. The sight of me in pain had made the vampire imagine herself being dominated and defeated, and she feared it. I listened but it fell away, a piece of flotsam pulled into the storm around me. I did not hear it again.

I was watching Caius's thoughts when he nodded to Jane. I was watching Jane's when she decided to act on it. The time in between felt like a thousand long years.

And then it stopped.

I returned to myself immediately, arms and legs curling me into a fetal position on the ground. I was on my feet before the next second passed, but they'd seen. They'd all seen.

_Why'd she stop?_

_Damn but that was a short one. I thought Master Caius wanted to teach this whelp a lesson._

And he might yet. I fixed my eyes on Caius, gently holding my arm, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Physical pain and a public spectacle. I had been punished inside and out, but was there more? I didn't see anything in Caius's thoughts other than the speech he meant to make, but that didn't mean there wasn't more.

Aro held out his hand to me. Gingerly, I released my left arm and took his offered hand with my right. To the crowd, this was a gesture of welcome and forgiveness, a sign that my punishment was over, and that I was receiving lenience as his gift. Between the two of us, he was curious. He wanted to know what I'd been thinking.

_If you had a heart, you'd know_, I thought. Aro ignored me as he rifled through my memories of what had happened during Bella's first feeding. I saw his lip twist in amusement as he watched me tell Bella to learn Chinese to make herself more useful to the elders.

_Thoughtful_, he mused. _On many levels_. He was pleased that I'd thought of it, pleased that I'd even gone through the motions of looking for what would be useful to the Volturi.

I hadn't done it for him. If it had been raining, I would have brought her an umbrella. If it had been sunny, I would have taught her to keep her skin covered. Aro was like the weather—an unpleasant reality to which we had to adapt.

Aro's thoughts flickered like a movie projector on speed. Something bothered him. Something about what I'd seen with Bella hadn't added up. Another memory asserted itself. His conversation with me, days earlier.

_"How many newborns could hold their breath?"_

_"Did she?"_

What did the events of that terrible day have to do with our meal?

_I'd seen her calm herself down before she cold spill over_.

Aro was thinking and I did not like where his thoughts were going. They were lingering on another day in this room, another time I'd lain convulsing on the floor as Jane did her work on me. Oh at the time I had realized that Aro thought Bella was a possible treasure, but now I had no distractions. There was no shivering human in my arms, no sister to protect. Even my own guilt had begun to dull. I could finally see what Aro had seen that day.

He'd been sure, _sure_ that Bella had a gift like Jane's or his own. Not only was her silent mind immune to his touch—and mine—but he had been certain that she'd been able to extend that power outside herself. What he'd later seen in my own thoughts had confirmed it: I had known a moment of utter terror when Alice's thoughts had disappeared from my hearing, as if she had already been torn apart and incinerated while my back was turned. But Aro interpreted things differently. To Aro, Alice had temporarily become another Bella, like a paper clip that had touched a magnet.

A gift that powerful, granting immunity not only to herself but to others would be of incomparable value. But what if that was not the case? She hadn't been able to protect me from Jane, not even when I'd been right in front of her.

I saw with suppressed anger that that had been the plan—and the reason why my punishment was so light. Aro had _wanted_ Jane to go for me. He'd wanted to see what Bella would do. Only she hadn't done what he'd expected.

Aro continued to muse, immune to my stifled rage. What if Bella's gift was something else entirely, he wondered. No vampire in history had ever had more than one gift.

Earlier, in the feeding chamber, she had behaved as if she were months, not days old. Her self-control wasn't perfect, but it was way ahead of schedule.

"Demetri," he said out loud.

"Yes, Master," said the tracker, coming to heel, as always.

Aro gestured with his chin that Demetri should come closer. I watched balefully as he complied. Demetri's thoughts were refreshingly clear and focused, as always. If they had been about something else, I might even have enjoyed hearing them.

_Hasn't the boy caused enough trouble? If he'd minded himself, he might have taken the newborn off my hands_. Demetri didn't like looking after Bella, it seemed. Fine. Wonderful. He was barely better than Felix in my mind.

"Did you notice anything unusual today?" asked Aro. "About our new arrival, I mean."

Demetri's eyes flicked to me as he recalled all the very unusual habits that irked him so.

"He means Bella," I growled at him.

Aro blinked. as Demetri looked at him to see if I'd been telling the truth. I could read surprise on his face and in his mind. He hadn't realized that he'd been misinterpreted. "Perhaps, if you would be so kind, Demetri," he said, releasing my hand to reach out for his, "as to answer my question in a more direct manner?"

The crowd heard it as a request. Even Demetri heard it as a request. Only Aro and I knew it was an order. Only I knew that no one realized it.

Demetri took Aro's hand and, for the first time, I watched as Aro explored thoughts that were not my own. It would have been fascinating if the situation had not been so serious. Aro didn't play a man's life backwards and forwards like a video recording; he absorbed it all as once piece, only then turning his attention to the spots that he felt were the most important. Today, it was Demetri's memories of Bella—all of them.

I felt the growl rise in my throat as I saw that he'd gone with Felix and Heidi to deliver Bella's first meal, a woman in a hat and a blue dress. I wondered briefly what they'd done with the body, then shook my head. I'd learn all the grisly workings of this place soon enough.

Demetri had little experience with newborns, he saw. Not enough to make any real judgments as to how typical Bella's behavior had been. At least I had Jasper's secondhand memories of the wars in the south. Aro's mouth tightened as he realized that he would learn nothing from Demetri that he had not already learned from me.

I felt my own chest tighten as I realized what he meant to do about it.

"Very well," Aro said simply. "Bring us the girl."

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	13. Ch 12 Strong

Some of you may be wondering what took me so effing long. Well, it's been a bunch of things, really. In addition to general real-life-kicking-my-you-know-what, one of my favorite writing hangouts happens to be the B&N in my local palace of excess. And it's December. During the Christmas season. So no, I wasn't going to get my usual serene fanfic writing environment. The other reason is that I realized that the ending to the previous chapter was no good at all, so I have gone back and **written an extended ending to chapter eleven**. I also redid the fight scene in chapter seven and altered eight and nine to match, but you don't absolutely need to reread those to understand what happens next. So there was a wait, but you get more than this one bitty chap for it. As always, I post my rough drafts on Bloodfeud first.

Also, come on out and Support Stacie at this weekend's vampire fandom auction! See darkfrog24 . livejournal . com for links!

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"I should have guessed, after a day like today, that it would be better." –Bella, _Breaking Dawn_

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Once I was back in my cell, I unbuttoned the shirt and slipped it off. I didn't care if they were watching me through some camera—as if there were anywhere to hide one in here. I held the creased white fabric to my face and inhaled. I could smell dust and filth and other vampires and Volterra, but under it all there was—

_Edward..._

God only knew when they'd let Edward come back to see me again, and until then I was going to have nothing to do but think. I knew exactly what I was going to think about. There was one thing that hadn't changed when I'd become a vampire. I was still a complete masochist. I didn't have any cliffs or motorcycles (I doubted that my new brain would let me hallucinate anyway.) but here I was, dying to get my fix. I relaxed my fingers, hoping that I hadn't ripped any holes in the cloth. With my luck, I'd vacuum the whole thing up my nose before I'd realize what I was doing.

I saw it coming this time. I could feel it building like a wave inside me getting ready to crash.

I was sad. I was angry. I was embarrassed. I was scared—not the way I had been when I'd walked into the audience chamber and I'd thought that Edward and Alice and I could get killed at any second but I was still _scared_. I was scared of this room and I was scared of leaving this room and I was scared of Volterra and the Volturi and my new thirst and my new body and most of all, _most of all_, I was scared of Edward. Out of everything in all the world, he was what could hurt me the most. That hadn't changed in the months since he'd left me or the days since I'd become a vampire or the minutes since I'd seen him last. I knew, somewhere deep near where my heartbeat used to be that it never would change. He was still the center of my universe, bright and blazing, and he could either anchor me or burn me to nothing.

I didn't have to think about Jacob this time. I just buried my mind in that wonderful scent and everything else evaporated.

For a few seconds, I didn't care how humiliating it was. It just felt _so_... _damned_ _...good!_ Almost as good as when he'd been standing here in front of me.

My last minutes with Edward had hit me like a one-two punch. When I'd first seen the flecks of red in his eyes, swirling like a cloud in front of the sun, I'd thought the worst. Bad vampires had red eyes and good vampires had gold, and Edward was good. Edward didn't kill innocent people and he didn't have accidents. Edward was in control, always. I'd felt as if the foundations of the earth had fallen away underneath my feet.

And some small, selfish part of me had been happy. Maybe if he'd done it, he wouldn't be so horrified that I had too. Then I'd felt guilty about even thinking like that.

I wouldn't have thought that my emotions could turn on a dime like they were doing. I'd been trying so hard to be strong for him, like he was being strong for me, pushing and pushing myself in one direction, but when he'd told me, when he'd _told_ me...

Even now my eyes closed, all but rolled back in my head. That day in the audience chamber, when Edward had changed me into a vampire, it had felt like he'd really _wanted_ me. I must have known on some level that it would all fall away the minute the surprise of seeing me alive wore off, that he'd remember all his old reasons and realize that I was just as boring, just as much trouble to take care of as I'd ever been. Shock wears off and real feelings come through. That was how it was supposed to work. But I'd gotten my stupid hopes up.

And these past few days had given me nothing to complain about. He'd been kind and brave and generous and he'd done all I could reasonably expect him to do for me. He was everything that a nice boy should be to a nice girl when they're stuck in a bad situation together. He didn't love me, but I'd known that on the flight over. Saving him didn't mean that I got to keep him.

But seeing it in his eyes... Not some dim human memory, but bright and exact and literally staring me in the face... It was a connection that he couldn't deny, proof that it had all really happened.

It had gone through me. It had into me the way I'd gone into him, and my new body had hummed with the thought of it. I'd wanted his eyes and his hands and his voice and his scent and just ..._all of him_ and I'd had my arms around his waist and my ear pressed to his chest and it had seemed like the most natural thing in the world. I was sure I'd have kissed him if he hadn't turned away.

I missed it this time. I didn't catch it soon enough and it hit me hard. Embarrassment. Sheer, utter, spine-wrenching, gut-pounding embarrassment. I curled up in a ball, turning Edward's shirt between my wrists until the threads seemed to twang in my hands. God, what had I _done?_

Come to think of it, I wasn't sure that I _hadn't_ kissed him. I bit my lip and clenched my fists together. I didn't even remember if I'd ...had I _said_ anything? I remembered asking him for something, but I didn't remember what it was, only that he'd answered me about running away. Oh God, I'd probably said something so stupid... And I didn't know whether to be grateful or angry that Edward didn't seem to have noticed a damned thing.

Angry. Angry for now. I was going to be stuck in this cell until they decided to let me out, and who the hell knew when that would be? I had time to be angry. I could be angry at Caius and Aro for forcing Edward's hand—I wasn't too sure how much the third one had had to do with it—with Felix for being so completely creepy, with Jane for hurting Edward, with Edward for hurting me. I loved him. I'd already forgiven him, but that didn't mean I wasn't _angry_.

And what the hell had been that "promise not to leave you" bullshit? As if that particular promise could hold any weight after—I closed my eyes. Sure, there was a big difference between leaving someone five hundred feet from her dad's house and leaving her in the middle of this goddamned lion's den, but the words still bit me. It had happened months ago. Well it didn't _feel_ like months ago. It never had.

I dropped the shirt, letting it slide against my smooth skin. I didn't want to tear it. I knew I'd need it again. It wasn't like I could just pop into an Old Navy and get something else to wear—or like I had any chance in hell of finding Alice's Porche and getting my overnight bag. For some reason, the thought of my forlorn, lost toothbrush and extra socks lying on some back seat somewhere, never to be picked up just sent an aching sadness all the way through me. They would just sit there and sit there and no one would ever know why I didn't come to get them. I was never going to see my socks or Charlie or Forks ever again.

I dug my fingers into the stones of the wall. The steel worked against its insides kept me from getting a proper grip, but I could still feel the rocks crunch to powder under my hands, smell the dust spilling into the air. It felt good. It felt damned good.

I let it all wash over me. I should have felt hot. I should have felt my face burn and my blood boil, but I wasn't so sure I even had blood any more. Instead, I felt chills down my back, tightness in my arms and chest and stomach. Those were my physical cues now. That was how my body would respond to me. I curled up on my side and let it all happen.

I didn't make a sound—I didn't think that I was making any sounds—but not because I was holding anything back. It was just the way it hit me.

I didn't know how long I lay there. I didn't want to know. I only wanted to the time to pass, and for all of this to end. It did, in a manner of speaking—I heard footsteps outside again. The pattern of footfalls seemed familiar to me, but I didn't know if that was only my imagination.

I listened quietly, trying not to move, and I found that keeping still was strangely easy. Then there were muffled voices in the hallway. Edward and Demetri. Staying in this room must have been getting to me because I perked up like a kid on Christmas morning. Back so soon!

I pushed it down. There was no need to humiliate myself again, and I just knew I was going to fawn all over him like a puppy if I didn't rein in. Of course he was back, I recited in my head. He was only bringing me books, like he'd said. And of course they hadn't let him come alone. He probably wouldn't be able to stay long. He'd said that Aro liked to keep him close by. God I hated Aro.

I could hear the keys clinking outside. And then I remembered that I was standing there in just my jeans and a bra. A startled sound escaped me a I snatched up Edward's shirt and pulled it over my arms so hard that I ripped one sleeve half off the shoulder, barely managing to button the whole thing down and drag four fingers through my tangled hair before the lock thudded into alignment.

I tried to look neat. I tried to look calm. I wasn't used to all this and I hoped to God that I would never _have_ to get used to it.

The door opened and I held in a gasp. I hadn't thought that Edward could look worse, but he did. Edward looked like he'd lived a hundred long years in the time since I'd seen him last. How long had it been? An hour? What could they have done to him in an hour?

In the back of my mind, something registered that he wasn't carrying any books. Wrong. Something was wrong, and I didn't like wondering what it was.

"Aro wants to see you," he murmured, and then knowing was worse.

He held out his hand, the same as he had last time. I looked at it, white and immovable in the air in front of me. I half-expected it to be shaking.

"Why?" I asked immediately. I didn't want to see Aro again. I supposed I'd realized that if we were stuck in Volterra, I would have to see Aro and Caius and the other one, but the idea hadn't really been hammered home. I also didn't like what my new brain did with the idea, calculating up every possible reason and outcome. Maybe he wanted to let Jane at me again to see what would happen. Maybe he'd heard of Edward's "learn Chinese" idea and wanted to quiz me on Tang dynasty verbs right now. Maybe he wanted to toss me another human so that I'd— I thought of Jacob. I felt like crap. I shook it off. Because I had no real idea of what was true and what was fiction, things got very creative and very bad. I knew how vampires could get by without sleeping—they had their bad dreams wide awake.

Edward's head jerked toward Demetri, who glared back.

"He's waiting," Demetri said in a low rasp.

Edward turned back to me. "Come on," he said gently. He reached out again. "I'll explain as we go, but come on."

There wasn't anything for it, I realized. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to stay. I wanted Edward. I would always want Edward. Whatever was waiting for us, I would be a thousand times happier being there with him than leaving him to face it alone. I took his hand.

It was strange being out of my cell. I didn't _like_ being locked up, but the entire world felt new and ominous. Edward still didn't seem to want to look at me, leaning sideways until his lips nearly brushed the top of my head. "Aro wants to know if you have a gift," he explained, speaking quickly as we walked ahead of Demetri down the hall, "an ability like mine."

I shook my head. "But I don't." My thoughts were made out of defective, off-kilter brainwaves that Edward couldn't read, but that wasn't an _ability_. I couldn't _do_ anything with it.

"He thinks you do," he said. "He wants to see for himself."

I swallowed hard, cooking up a thousand images of what _that_ might entail.

"Easy..." Edward whispered in my ear. I nodded, willing myself to stop tensing up. It was easier this time. There wasn't any part of me that didn't want to give in to that smooth, velvet voice...

The footsteps behind us paused. Edward seemed to want to keep moving, but I turned around to see Demetri staring at me with a frown on his thin face. I looked away. I didn't want to ask this man any questions or draw his notice in any way. It was bad enough that he was even here. But there wasn't anything I could do about it.

Edward gave my arm a little tug and we started walking again. "Why would Aro think I had a gift?" I asked him. He pressed his lips together and didn't answer. "Edward," I prompted.

"You're not like an ordinary newborn," he said quietly. I felt a rush of winter in my veins as he said it. There was something wrong with me. I should have known. It would be just my luck. I'd barely been a functioning human, and now I'd become a defective vampire. Edward's grip on my arm grew just a bit tighter as he continued. "Most newborns are wild, at least for the first few weeks. They'll jump at shadows, attack anyone who doesn't approach them just right."

"But..." I trailed off. "But I _am_ like that, aren't I?"

"No, Bella, you're _not_. You didn't jump at Felix or Jane until they'd attacked me," he insisted. "They created the dangerous situation. Usually, the newborn is the one starting the fights—and that's under ordinary circumstances."

"Ordinary circumstances?"

Edward's jaw tightened and he looked straight ahead. "Anything that's not _this_," he finished. There was a soft sound from behind us, barely a whisper. Demetri had exhaled slightly. I wondered at the gesture for a moment, then decided that he hadn't liked what Edward had said.

As we walked, my eyes kept zooming in on random details, the texture of the carpet, scrapes of dust where the floor tiles met the walls. This place was like a rabbit warren. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. I wasn't even sure if I'd be able to retrace my steps without help, vampire memory notwithstanding. As we walked, Edward slipped his arm around my waist again. I closed my eyes. It wasn't the same. It wasn't the same affection that I remembered, but it was still his touch, and I craved it like a drug.

It was as simple as turning a corner. It _was_ turning a corner. One second, we'd been walking down some unfamiliar hallway and the next, my surroundings came into view and I knew exactly where I was. It shouldn't have upset me. It shouldn't have seeped into me like black ice on my bones, but it did. And the second I realized where we were going, I couldn't make my feet move forward.

"Bella, what is it?" asked Edward, just a thread of real concern coloring his voice.

"We're not..." I shook my head. They were human memories, but they were sharp, jumping and slashing at the front of my mind of the last time I'd seen this lobby and these doors. Pain. Screaming. _Welcome to Volterra!_ "We're not going _there_?" The words sounded pathetic in my ears, hysterical, but I had to know. I had to hear him say it, because that meant it wouldn't be true. He had to open his mouth and say—

"Bella, my arm," he said firmly. I looked down and saw that I was holding onto him so tightly that his skin was starting to crack.

Behind us, I heard Demetri take a step forward, shift his weight as if to spring, but Edward held up his free hand. "Don't," he said, an artificial calm coloring his voice like whitewash over a rock. "She can do it," he muttered, almost as if he didn't mean for Demetri to hear.

His eyes fixed on mine, his perfect, honey-gold eyes that held me trapped inside them. "It's just a room," he said. I knew that. It was what happened _in_ the room that was freaking me out. But I didn't want him to stop talking. I loved his voice. I still loved his voice. "It's used for many purposes. Today, Aro wants to talk. Just to talk." It wasn't a promise but it sounded like one.

"It's just a room," I repeated. I closed my eyes. It was just a room. I forced myself to think of Jacob as I'd last seen him, disgust mixed with sadness on his face. I would see him again. If I was going to put things right between us, I had to see him again, and that meant that I had to make it through the next few minutes. And it was just a room.

I nodded, though my fear hadn't given way entirely. "Just a room." Edward smiled back at me. It was tight and tiny, not his real smile, but a smile, and it made me feel better. I hoped I would still feel better once I was actually _in_ there.

Demetri muttered something in what might have been Russian. The way Edward glared at him, I was pretty sure it wasn't a nice word.

"Are you ready?" he asked, turning back to me, looking just to the side of my gaze in a way that I hoped I wouldn't have to get used to. My new life wasn't five days old, but already I could say that something was rare. Edward looking me in the eye was like a comet, bright and beautiful, but rare.

"No," I admitted helplessly.

He nodded. He just nodded. Whatever tightness and closeness I'd felt—or imagined—from him in the past few minutes had evaporated like a brush of alcohol on my skin. "Look Aro in the eye," he said quietly, as if he were Charlie trying to tell me how to keep a trout from slipping the line. "Don't mind the others, not even Caius or Marcus unless they say something to you. And if anyone asks..." he trailed off.

He was looking straight ahead, his lips pressed into a tight line. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. I watched his eyes flick sharply to Demetri and then ahead again. He didn't want the other vampire to hear what he was going to say. I didn't have to have Edward's gift to know that. Eventually, he closed his eyes, as I watched him resign himself to whatever unpleasant thing he was going to tell me I had to to do. I steeled myself. I could be strong too, I resolved. If I had to kowtow to Aro or let Jane try to burn me alive, I would do it. I would protect him like he was protecting me.

"If anyone asks?" I prompted.

Edward breathed out, fixing his eyes on the door ahead of us. "If anyone asks if you're my mate, say yes."

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	14. Ch 13 Reason

I am still taking suggestions for a better chapter title. Support Stacie starts March 26! If you want me to do your bidding (or just watch the sideshow), then come to SupportStacie dot com to help Stacie Holeman kick cancer's you-know-what!

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"Very young vampires are volatile, wild, and almost impossible to control. One newborn can be reasoned with, taught to restrain himself, but ten, fifteen together are a nightmare. They'll turn on each other as easily as the enemy you point them at." –Jasper, _Eclipse_

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Her lips parted. Her wide, ruby-bright eyes blinked. I closed my own.

I shouldn't have said it. There were a thousand reasons why I shouldn't have said it. But I couldn't take it back.

"And if it doesn't come up, don't raise the issue," I told her, opening my eyes. "Do you understand?"

Her face was blank. Of course she didn't understand. And I didn't have time to explain. Inside Aro's audience chamber there were so many complexities of which she could have no idea, each one a wrong turn with disaster waiting at the end. She needed to know what she was getting into, and I could not stop to tell her.

That and the thought of having Bella Swan, _my_ or _any_ Bella Swan for a mate, a _mate_ was— I clenched my teeth together.

Behind me, Demetri was shaking his head. _What is he playing at?_ he wondered. Either Bella was my mate or she wasn't.

I let my eyes slide down the half-familiar curve of her face.

In truth, she was _and_ she wasn't. The human Bella Swan had changed me, and I was hers, but was I tied to her body or to her being? If her body, then I belonged to this newborn, and while that idea created certain ...problems for me, I might as well use it to protect her. Damage done. But if it had been Bella's spirit, then I—

There was a hollow clicking sound behind us. I felt every muscle in my body tighten up as that sound and the shallow, clipped thoughts of the person making it washed away my self-centered musing. I'd failed again. I'd been so focused on Bella, on myself, that I'd lost track.

_Damn,_ the thought was ice-clear, rippling with images of torn, drained corpses, all in perfect makeup. _I knew we'd forgotten something_.

I tightened my grip on Bella's arms. I should have dragged her out of the room. I should have yanked open the doors and gotten us to where Aro was waiting. But it felt I was glued to the floor, to those eyes. All I could do was hold on, so I did.

"Hold your breath," I hissed.

Her face showed me neither confusion nor comprehension, but her chest stopped moving.

And Gianna walked into the room, just as she did this time every morning, so regularly that even Demetri could forget the significance of it, the heels of her sensible, elegant shoes echoing like the tick of some ominous clock.

Bella's eyes were just a little wider, her pupils dilating only by a fiber, but enough for me to notice. I'd seen that look on Jasper's face on the first night of this long downfall.

"Hold your breath," I murmured again, shifting so that I was pinning her arms to her sides. With her strength, she could pull free of me, but I might be able to slow her down long enough for Demetri to—

Why wasn't he moving?

"What in hell are you waiting for?" came a snarl that I would never in a hundred years have known for my voice. "Get her _out_ of here!"

Demetri stared at me as if I'd lost my mind. Bella was already shaking and I didn't want to think about why. "_Her_," I couldn't take my hands off Bella to point, so I thrust my chin to where Gianna stood, struck dumb in the middle of the room. "Haul her out of here by her hair if you have to. Now _go!_"

I had to hand to to him. His thoughts were quick. In the space it would have taken me to add up two and two, Demetri had weighed his master's orders to not let me out of his sight against Caius's displeasure at having to train a new human servant to anything like Gianna's level of skill and the fact that I was only just outside the audience chamber and then the echo of a surprised human yelp was all that was left of them.

He was a fast runner, even dragging a human. I would have to remember that.

Bella's eyes were wide as ever. I was pinning her arms to her sides, only the side of her face clear to me behind her tangled hair.

For a moment all I could see was that impossible image in my mind, courtesy of Gianna.

She was good at reading vampire faces. It was part of why she was still alive. She was better at it than I was.

I looked at Bella's face again. Superimposed on all that blankness was everything I'd seen in Gianna's mind. Thirst, as I'd expected. Fear, like I'd heard in her voice. But she'd also seen everything else, _everything _else. To Gianna, Bella looked like a child trying to pull something out of a fire, groping sightlessly and praying that it wouldn't be lost. Gianna hadn't recognized the expression, but I had. I'd seen Esme press her hands against her face and pull herself away, long ago last September.

Quickly, I let my eyes dart across eyebrows and cheekbones that had, a moment ago, seemed no more expressive to me than glass. In my urgency, I nearly lost the question she was mouthing, not daring to draw in a breath to give it voice.  
"_Is she gone? Is she gone?_"

"Yes, she's gone." I heard amazement. I realized that it had come from me.

The reality of the past few minutes crashed down around me.

Had it all just happened?

I'd told her to hold her breath and she'd done it. She wasn't a week old, and she'd stood in the same room with a beating human heart.

The eyes finally closed, and I tried to see what Gianna saw. Shame? Relief? Or did I only want to think they were there? I stroked my hands down her arms, finally loosening my grip. I looked up at the heavy double doors.

They'd have heard it all, I realized. They'd want to know what the commotion was, and if they had to send someone to find out, it would not go well for us.

"Ready?" I asked quietly. It seemed like a week since I'd first asked.

She nodded her head, short and quick, sliding her right hand down to take mine. I clasped her fingers and watched the stillness come back to her. By the time she opened her eyes, she was marble again, a predator so still that no rustle or breath would reveal her to her prey.

As I lifted my free hand to the handle, a memory came to me, a lifetime old. The last time I'd walked through these doors with Bella, she'd held herself so close to me that her steps had staggered, her head tucked under my chin, her heart beating like a hummingbird against my chest. One heart for two of us.

And now we had none.

I yanked the door open and led Bella into our new coven's sight. The wave of curious thoughts hit me like a swarm of clicking locusts.

_Is that the same girl? They always look different, but I think that's her._

_Well. Not so bedraggled now, is she?_

_Jeans and tennis shoes. Slovenly like some tourist._ _She's_ _not quite tall enough for her body type. And her lips are out of balance_, thought one woman. "Adrienne," I remembered. I watched her ruffle her mental feathers like a disgruntled peacock as she grudgingly tallied Bella's graceful cheekbones and the hints of smooth limbs underneath her torn and mismatched clothes. She did not want another rival to her own dark good looks.

_What was that noise? Whelp couldn't even get her here without making some fuss._

_Well..._ This thought was followed by a visual undercurrent of Bella's charms. It was far less critical of Bella's clothing than Adrienne's had been, and far more imaginative with regard to what might be underneath it. I turned my eyes to my right, glaring at Felix.

_The freak looking at me for?_ his mental voice was low, peppered with images of the time he'd beaten me and of the new delights he had planned, but he hadn't been the one undressing Bella with his mind. _Gianna's perfume,_ he realized, nostrils widening slightly. _Her perfume but not her blood..._

I searched the crowd again, honing in on the voice. My eyes settled on a stocky vampire with light brown hair

_Don't even try it,_ I thought, giving him the strongest glare I could without breaking my stride toward the center of the room. He couldn't hear me, but he got the message all the same. He stopped trying to see through the tears in Bella's shirt and starting sizing me up instead, measuring his own observations against what he'd heard from Felix. Good. So long as he wasn't thinking about her any longer.

The only person I couldn't hear was her. I couldn't even feel her pulse through her fingers or smell sweat on her skin. I hadn't learned the new cues, even if I now knew to look for them.

It was strange seeing her through the eyes of others of our kind. And they were _our_ kind now. Even with her tangled hair, the cuffs of my torn shirt dangling past her palms, she was a vampire now, with her birthright gleaming out through her skin.

I had looked at her, but always with some purpose. I'd tried to puzzle out her thoughts or find some visual connection to my lost human love. I'd watched her face and carriage for signs that she was losing control but I hadn't stepped back and just _seen_ since that first day in her cell. I supposed that I'd noticed she was beautiful, but I had been more concerned with the tragedy of her being there at all.

It was true. She was beautiful. I wondered what Esme would have thought of her. I wondered what crazy outfits Alice would have engineered. I wondered about Rosalie.

I wished I could look longer, but I had to keep my eyes straight ahead. Caius was standing in the fore now, Aro off to his left. Marcus was no longer in the chamber. I took a few steps toward them, feeling Bella match my stride. I saw Afton and a female vampire with tight black curls mirror our movements to stand near Marcus's empty throne. It was all so graceful that I'd barely have noticed they were positioning themselves to pounce on Bella if she made a false move. Alec and Jane were already in place. I noticed Chelsea hovering behind her mate, her thoughts like needles against my mind. I would deal with her later.

"Ah, Edward. And where is Demetri?" Caius asked with enough smugness in his voice to make me wonder. A split-second later I knew for sure.

I swallowed my anger. It would not help us. It _would not help_ us.

"Someone forgot to tell Gianna to take the morning off, Master," I answered. But he already knew. "Demetri has escorted her out of the lobby."

"How ...thoughtful of him," he said, only just faltering. I honed in on Caius's thoughts like a lifeline. I knew that he'd put Gianna in Bella's path on purpose, but I still didn't know _why_. I could see in his mind that he'd had some other response ready. He'd expected a Bella fresh from feeding on a coven servant. He'd expected Bella but hoped for both of us.

Aro's cobwebbed eyes flicked to his brother, amusement touching his lips. He had figured out what had just happened outside. From what I could see of his thoughts, he hadn't known ahead of time what Caius had planned, but he wasn't surprised. It was in his character.

I turned my attention back to Caius and I had my answer. He wouldn't have needed an excuse to keep a newborn confined, not really, but liked to have the law on his side. The penalty for feeding on a human servant was not severe—these things did happen, after all—but a crime would give him power over her. Punishment was his domain.

I allowed myself a tiny, tight hint of a smile as I looked the cruelest of my masters in the eye. She'd outdone him, my newborn Bella. He'd meant to take advantage of her appetites, but she'd restrained herself. She hadn't done it perfectly, but she'd done it, though God only knew how.

"Masters," I said, raising Bella's hand to shoulder height. If I wanted them to treat her like a lady, I might as well present her as one. "This is my Bella," I said deliberately. They could interpret it however they wished.

_God, that smell... Why do they both reek like a pigsty?_

_Could he mean that they're already... No. There wasn't time. He's just her maker._

_Still say they should have let us all have a taste. Twenty years since I'd smelled blood that sweet._

_Wait..._ I watched the stocky man put two and two together. _If she's his mate now, that means..._ He looked from Bella to me and back. _So did he fuck the newborn or was he fucking a human?_ I watched his image of me change in his mind's eye. I seemed less formidable, more spindly, the way a pervert ought to look. But Bella looked just a hair less appetizing. It would do.

_Ugh... With a human?_ I recognized Adrienne again. She pictured Bella's appearance from a few days earlier. _Disgusting. Of course, she's not _that_ much prettier now_. I shook my head. Lauren Mallory had nothing on this one.

"Welcome, Bella," Aro said familiarly, taking a step toward her. "I know I've said that to you once before, but I'm sure it sounds a bit different now." I had to hand it to him. His smile actually looked indulgent, like a good grandfather's.

Bella looked at me. I forced myself to look back and gave a tight nod.

"Thanks," she said tentatively. I squeezed her hand

"My dear Jane tells me that her powers do not work on you," he continued. His tone was slightly scolding now, as if he'd caught Bella turning in her homework late, but there was a gleam of greed somewhere behind the cobwebs in his eyes. "And I know from our Edward's thoughts that your mind is as closed to him as it ever was."

"Sorry," Bella said quietly.

"No no, don't apologize," Aro answered, taking a step toward us. Behind him, Felix adjusted his position, and the dark-haired woman gave a little jump. Nervous thing. "Never apologize for being talented, little Bella. But I must admit, I _am_ curious. May I?" he asked, holding out his hand for her to take.

Bella looked at me again. I nodded and let go of her right hand. It wasn't as if we really had a choice. Slowly, she reached up and grasped just the ends of Aro's fingers with hers.

_Not a whisper,_ he thought in amazement. _Not a thing..._

I saw his eyes narrow just a bit before the bland smile took over. "Fascinating," he murmured. I could tell he wasn't pleased. He'd been sure that his gift would succeed where mine and Jane's had failed, and he wasn't happy to find out otherwise.

_Still,_ he thought, _a gift of this nature is not without its uses. Yes... I was right not to let this one go to waste. I wonder if she won't be more valuable than her mate in the long run._ But not Alice, he remembered with a tiny twitch of his lip. No one could ever match Alice.

Bella's hand had found mine again. I couldn't even remember taking it, but I didn't let go.

_And then there is that other matter,_ thought Aro. _Caius is right. We mustn't ignore the possibility._

"Ordinarily, we'd have to keep a newborn like yourself locked away for her first few weeks, but Jane and Felix tell us that this may not be necessary in your case."

"She's surprised even me, Master," I said, keeping my voice as level as I could. "She's managed to keep very good control of her actions ...even when provoked," I finished. I couldn't resist glaring at Jane.

Aro eyed Bella appraisingly. I clenched my teeth and ordered my throat not to growl. He was thinking about _provocation_, either by setting Jane on myself or having one or more of the guard attack Bella directly.

_Too risky..._ he decided at last. Even with only two elders to protect, his bodyguards might not be able to stop Bella before she did some real damage. Besides, he had Jane's and my memories of Bella's accomplishments, and that was in some ways even better than seeing through his own half-calcified eyes.

"Edward tells me that you're of a studious bent," he said, "that you like to read."

I felt my jaw clench. I hadn't exactly _told_ him. I'd made a point of telling him as little as I could get away with. He'd stolen it from me with the rest of my secrets.

Bella nodded.

"We will see if we can find some duty for you there, eventually," Aro added. "For now we'll have to keep you away from any of the employees, you understand. Accidents happen from time to time, but that's no reason to be careless."

But Bella was already nodding. "Please," she said. "I don't want to hurt Gianna or anyone."

Aro paused, shrewdness flickering behind his polite façade.

_Is she that good of an actress?_ he wondered. His scummed eyes moved from Bella to me and back. He was remembering our conversation from a few days before, when I'd told him how Bella had confessed to her first murder, how he'd doubted that she truly hadn't wanted to kill anyone. Then he remembered the Bella who'd shown up in the throne room with Alice and me, shivering, shaken, and completely without guile. _No... No, I don't think she's faking it. Damn but this is maddening._ He had time, he thought in the back of his mind, time to pull up all of Bella's secrets, crack her open like a stubborn walnut.

"What do you think, Brother?" asked Aro.

"I think it would be safer to keep her confined, Brother," answered Caius, "at least for another few months."

"But we should give little Bella a chance, don't you think?"

Caius didn't even pause. He didn't want Aro to countermand him in front of the guard, but he'd spent centuries keeping his followers from noticing. "A well-supervised chance," he said, picturing Felix and Adrienne at Bella's side. I tensed.

Aro nodded. "An excellent idea. Renata," he called.

"Yes Master?" answered the nervous little brunette opposite Felix. Her tight black curls were piled in a round bun on top of her head. Her features were smooth, marred only by her obvious fearfulness. She looked like she'd been black or Caribbean during her human life. Her fingernails were neat and perfect. She didn't look like a fighter, not in her form or her carriage. But she'd been next to Felix, at a bodyguard's post.

"Take little Bella upstairs to get cleaned up," said Aro. I watched him remember my plan about Cantonese. "Then see about getting her settled, not in the main library for now. You know the place I mean."

"Yes, Master," she said. Her voice was steady, but her thoughts were more revealing. I could see where she'd been told to take Bella, a part of the compound that I'd never visited. It was out of the way, a place where most of the coven wouldn't go without an excuse. She'd be safe enough. More importantly...

_Oh, I don't want to go. What if my gift doesn't work on her either—_ I saw images of vampires, always terrifying vampires, running at Renata or her companions, turned aside from their attacks by some invisible, triumphant force. _—then I'll be killed before anyone knows to come help me. Oh but she looked nice enough for a human when she was in here before, even if she was all wet and windblown. Maybe if I help her, she won't be mad at me..._

Timid, I sized her up as she forced a smile onto her face and stepped toward us. Timid but with something like kindness to her.

"May I accompany them, Master?" I asked Aro. I already knew what he'd say. But that wasn't the point.

_Oh, that's better,_ Renata thought gratefully._ Even if he is as bad as they say._ Here she pictured a pair of evil yellow eyes.

"We yet have need of you here, Edward," Caius answered harshly.

Bella looked up at me, fingers tight around my hand. I could tell she didn't want to go. I didn't want her to walk out of this room without me either, but it was better than leaving her in Felix's or even Heidi's tender care. I couldn't think with those eyes on me, so I leaned in, as if to press a kiss to the top of her head.

"It's all right," I whispered, quietly enough that no one else would hear. "_She's_ all right. You should go."

Bella pulled back to look me in the eye. I recognized doubt.

"Trust me," I whispered. And I found that I wanted her to, very much.

I could feel the uneasiness in her neck and shoulders. I let go of her hand, recording the perfect smoothness of her fingers as they slid past mine. I did not watch her go easily. She seemed to find my presence comforting, and I could remember the ballast that Carlisle had been to me in my early days. What if she lost her hold on her control once I was gone? And what if—

"Shouldn't we send someone to clear the hallways, Master?" I asked. "After all, someone other than Gianna might have decided to come to work early." It was a little after eight in the morning, early for an Italian work day, but there was no one so motivated as a human chasing immortality.

"Of course..." Caius said cleanly, concealing his displeasure. "How thoughtful of you, Edward." He nodded his head toward one of the vampires behind him. "Afton," he said curtly, "see that none of our tame humans run afoul of our new friend."

I recognized Afton from my run-in with Chelsea in the library. The man didn't like that I'd threatened his mate, but he'd taken Caius's orders at face value. It hadn't even occurred to him that he could sabotage Bella to get to at me.

Renata and Bella left through the main doors, followed loosely by Afton. I tried to get a fix on Renata's mental voice. I wanted to be able to find them again as soon as my attention was free. In the meantime, I saw Renata think about winding stairways, about what clothes she'd pick out for Bella to wear, where she'd run if Bella attacked her...

"A moment," Caius said to the crowd. He looked to Aro. "Brother, let us counsel."

"Let us counsel," agreed Aro, taking Caius's hand.

It was fascinating to watch their two ancient minds working in concert. Caius had no gift, but he knew Aro's, and Aro himself, so well that it hardly seemed to matter. The patterns of tension in his hands were their code. Caius would think, and Aro would respond to his carefully worded questions, and it would look as though they thought as one. They nearly did. I watched the images flickering back and forth between them. Aro was leader here, the senior brother, but it was Caius who provided the true, ruthless insight.

Caius believed that Aro's initial assessment of Bella's gift had been mistaken. He felt that she was not a true shield—a word they used for vampires with any protective powers—but simply different, her mind a wavelength off and out of reach, defective somehow. He wondered if humans were not developing some natural defense against vampires, the way that sickle cell anemia persisted in parts of Africa because of the protection that the defect offered against malaria parasites. That being so, perhaps Bella's unusually quick development was her gift.

I narrowed my eyes. There was something underneath that thought, as if Caius were playing devil's advocate, as if he would prefer to believe otherwise...

_No_, Aro said back.

Aro was sure that he'd been right, that Bella's silent mind was her unique gift. This was more useful both ways. Self-control was not a very helpful ability, not as a gift. The only advantage it gave was a peaceful mind a few months early. But if Bella had a true gift, a shield gift, then she could be useful to the Volturi throughout her life.

Also, and I watched the two of them come to this conclusion like sharks spiraling inward on a raft, if Bella had not gotten her self-control from some supernatural source, then she must have gotten it somewhere else.

Caius got to the idea first, uncoiling it into image after image of a Volturi guard backed by focused, iridescent-eyed novices.

_One calm newborn does not confer much advantage, Brother, but many... This boy has given us much to think about._ Caius's eyes settled on me and I felt the weight of them like cold iron. _We must re-create the conditions,_ he thought. _We must see if he can do it again_.

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	15. Ch 14 Focus

_Twilight_ and its three and a half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. Yep, that's Stephenie with three e's.

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"He's wondering if the newborn madness is really as difficult as we've always thought, or if, with the right focus and attitude, anyone could do as well as Bella." –Edward, _Breaking Dawn_

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My gift did not permit me to mistake Caius's meaning. Now that Aro had confirmed his suspicions, his mind was simmering through the possibilities. A single rational newborn could have her uses, even if an experienced fighter like Felix would always be more effective than some naïve child. But in groups...

Caius's thoughts shifted again. I saw rows of torches, carried in ice-white hands, drawing trails of hungry fire out on the ground before a fortress... _The Romanians,_ he thought. _We drove them back, broke their power, ruined their keep and their numbers. But imagine how it could have gone, Brother._ Here, Caius pictured a victory so complete that it would silence all future questions of Volturi supremacy.

"But it would be just as easy for someone else to do it, don't you think?" Aro asked out loud.

_All the more reason for us to discover it first._ If the secret of creating stable newborns could not be kept out of the wrong hands, Caius proposed, then the next best thing was to make sure it did get into the right ones. And to Caius's mind, the Volturi were the only right ones.

It was fascinating. Aro's and Caius's thoughts working in tandem was like watching a ballet, every piece of information moving in seamless unity toward the final conclusion. It suddenly seemed strange to me that I was the only person in the room capable of witnessing it. It was like an exotic bird with shimmering feathers or a waterfall hidden in the wilderness, too amazing for just one person to see.

Caius was already at the end result: Well-organized strike teams made up of calm newborns. All the strength of the southern armies, focused through as much training as the Volturi guard could give them over the course of a few weeks. I could see image after image of possible uses, possible threats to neutralize. Even, in one flickering moment, a large western coven comprising three bonded pairs and one unattached male, three, no, only two of them gifted—

I growled, loud and unapologetic. Caius barely noticed.

"Edward," Aro snapped. _You know perfectly well that people cannot always stop themselves from thinking things, even if they would never actually do them. Caius has no reason to ever attack my friend Carlisle, but it is his duty to consider all possibilities._ It wasn't true, at least not all the way down.

I quieted. There was nothing else I could do. And people were staring.

_You have to admit that the idea has possibilities, Brother,_ Caius thought. _As for the complications_—_-_ Here I saw Caius's mind flash through issues of training, secrecy, discovery, disposal and a thousand other problems standing like roadblocks between him and the increased power of his realized dream. —_such matters are far more your domain than mine. And you have been saying that you wanted a new project._

He was playing to Aro's curiosity, I noticed, and from the confidence in his thoughts, it seemed that it usually worked. This time, though...

Aro's eyes landed heavily on me. _I'd had quite a different project in mind, however..._ I steeled myself and returned his gaze. I would _never_ regret helping Alice escape from him, no matter how badly he wanted her or how much he made me suffer for it.

_You're right, of course,_ Aro thought. Caius' couldn't sense the words like I could, but he could read Aro's eyes well enough to get the general idea. I saw him smile tightly. _If anyone is to have a newborn army, it must be the Volturi, if only so that we can train our guard in how to defeat one._

"But only if it is even possible..." he murmured out loud. _The girl's progress could plateau, or this could all be some illusion. After all, it isn't as if I can tell for certain._ Again, a quick shadow of resentment passed across Aro's face, and Caius understood it as well as I did. Aro was convinced, and he knew it, and once his irritation passed, he would commence working out the details of Caius's plan. Of the three rulers of the Volturi, Marcus had loved architecture and the arts, and Caius had loved strategy. Aro had watched the development of science. And like any good scientist, he would change only one variable at a time. In this case, that meant turning human after human, carefully tracking each trait, making sure that it was the exact same vampire who turned them.

I turned away, not that it helped much. To see such vivid images of me with my teeth at a human neck... It was sickening. It made my stomach wrench and my throat burn at the same time.

The other vampires in the room were silent, apparently used to the elders' half-audible conversations. I tried to shake it off. Even their thoughts would be better than this.

_I wonder if they'll tell us what they're talking about this time._

_I see Chelsea stole my white blouse again. How many times do I have to tell her that it makes her look like a brick wall?_

_Master Marcus isn't back yet._ Jane. I watched her carefully. Her mind was simple enough that small changes in routine bothered her. It was sharp enough for her to pin down exactly what it was that she didn't like.

Most of the time, it was Aro who requested a counsel, Jane remembered. And Marcus was usually there, quiet and a little bored-looking, but reassuringly present, the third leg of the tripod holding up her limited universe.

But that was as far as Jane's curiosity went. It wasn't in her to wonder _why_ Marcus wasn't here, which was what was puzzling me. If meeting Bella had been dangerous, then why would Aro and Caius do it in person? And if it wasn't dangerous, then why wouldn't Marcus stay? I'd detected nothing overcautious in his thoughts, but I had to admit that I hadn't paid Marcus much attention.

I shook my head. It could have been as simple as that he'd had something else to do. And yet...

Marcus had been intrigued with the human Bella, or rather, with the dynamic between the human Bella and myself. A vampire who'd truly fallen in love with a human... It was something that he'd never seen before, not within the reach of his own eyes and his own gift. As jaded as he'd seemed, I couldn't believe that he'd pass up the chance to have another look at her, especially if I was standing next to her, not unless he had something very important that absolutely had to be done at the same time.

I felt my brow knit with worry. Caius had set a trap for Bella. Was Marcus doing the same while I was occupied here? Caius had said that they'd needed me to stay, but so far, he hadn't asked or even thought of asking me to do anything. Was it only that I needed to be distracted?

Carefully, I turned my attention back to Aro and Caius, hoping for some clue. Instead, I found that Aro working out the details of Caius's plan. Specifically, he was considering possibilities, trying to hammer out which traits of Bella's or of mine or of the two of us together could have caused her condition.

I found that I did not care. It was a subject for reflection, for home, for a long talk in Carlisle's study. Here, now, it could not interest me. I took a breath and let my mind reach out past the audience chamber, looking for the mouselike scurrying of Renata's thoughts. On my first day here, Aro had tricked me into giving him a demonstration of my power's tactical side. Surely he wouldn't object to a little practice. Of course, there was the question of whether or not I _could_ do it again. I'd been very motivated at the time, on fire with my need to know that my love was safe. Now... Now I merely _wanted_ to know.

The first mind I encountered was right outside the door, easily recognizable by its focus and precision:

_I ...suppose it didn't do any harm, for all that he made a fuss about it._ Here I saw an ice-clear memory of my own face, unnatural yellow eyes like pools of slime as I snarled out that he should take Gianna away. Demetri was waiting just outside, not wanting to interrupt whatever was happening within. _Whelp has no business giving orders. Still, it was less trouble than vetting a new receptionist_, he thought. I watched him remember what had happened next, each image perfecrly distinct, perfectly ordered: He'd taken Gianna outside, into the street, told her to take the morning off, and now he was contemplating what had happened in the lobby, prodding every fiber of the experience with the razorlike stilus of his thoughts.

I ranged wider, paying only token attention to Aro, Caius and the other vampires in my immediate surroundings as I skimmed outward. I still didn't have a good mental map of the compound—Aro had kept me too off-balance—but I kept trying, looking for thoughts of bookshelves and computer screens and other sights of the library. This early, there were only a few human employees settling in for the day. One of them was bringing the paper copies of the morning news subscriptions to the library for the next shift. I scanned the surface thoughts of the room's inhabitants. None of them were of Bella or Renata. They were not there. It made sense. Hadn't Aro said something about not going to the _main_ library? I looked wider and found a vampire ushering a young human out of an upstairs hallway. Afton? It could have been Afton. That meant Renata wouldn't be too far off...

I was listening for thoughts in parts of the compound I'd never personally visited. It was difficult for me, pinpointing how high up or far away each person was, not like finding Alice or Emmett as we hunted separately in the forest. And I couldn't match any of the images in these vampires' minds to any from rooms and hallways that I'd already seen. I found myself drawn to a faint male voice. His thoughts were completely in the moment. He was picturing nothing but the chamber he was in and the yellow-haired female in front of him.

_So glad we skipped the gathering. Nothing could be as sweet as this..._ The male's thoughts became wordless as he closed his eyes, focusing on the sounds and scent and feel of his paramour. I turned my attention away, tuning them out. Emmett and Rosalie had given me years of practice in minding my own business when it came to other people's intimate encounters.

Still, there was something about the male's mind that bothered me. I couldn't sense emotions directly, not the way Jasper could, but something about the two Volturi strangers... I told myself that it was the fact that they'd preferred a private moment of tenderness to a public spectacle of domination, but I knew that that wasn't quite it. I had a nagging suspicion that I would understand but not until my iciness had melted away, not until I could truly feel pain again. My curiosity did not live long.

_I hope she isn't mad at me when I tell her she has to take a shower. What if she thinks I'm up to no good, telling her to take her clothes off? Oh but what if she runs off or does something awful while I'm getting her something clean to wear?_ Renata. I'd found Renata. She was watching the back of Bella's head as the two of them climbed a staircase, the moring sunlight slanting in at them through the high, slitted windows. Renata's thoughts were scattered, jumbling together memories of a set of closets and wooden hangers with vision after vision of Bella breaking furniture, tearing apart human servants and beating Renata over the head with anything handy.

I tried to push myself further, feeling for any whisper of another mind in the stairwell with Renata, but there was nothing. The newborn Bella was as seamless as the human one had been.

I couldn't leave to go after them, not until Aro finished his counsel and gave me permission, so I just watched. I didn't know Renata's mind well enough to follow her without effort, not from this far away. Her mind, with all its cringing timidity, was more comfortable than, say, Mike Newton's, even if she lacked Angela Weber's refreshing lack of pretension.

Renata had told Bella to precede her up the staircase rather than leading the way. That was why things were going so slow. Every once in the while, Bella would look over her shoulder and Renata would remind herself to smile. It was strange to see my newborn through another person's eyes when that person was neither a threat like Felix nor a jealous harpy like Adrienne. I focused in the secondhand pictures in my head, trying to wipe the blurs from its edges. Renata was no Demetri.

The boor in the council chamber had seen Bella through his lust and Adrienne through her jealousy. Renata saw her through carefully calculated fear, measuring and extrapolating every possible threat from the ruby intensity of her eyes and each bulge of slender muscle through her perfect white skin.

Superimposed on the present, Renata was remembering the other newborns she'd met. I could tell that she'd been with the Volturi long enough to have seen some action in Mexico. She knew exactly what Bella could do to her if she lost her composure. To Renata, there was little more terrifying than an unpredictable newborn, and the idea that Bella might be immune to her own protective gift had shaken her terribly.

I didn't know whether to be disgusted with Renata's cowardice or impressed that she could do her duty despite it. I wondered whether she was different when there was no one threatening nearby. I wondered how someone of her character could end up in the Volturi guard at all.

I held back a sneer, remembering that my physical body was still in a room full of other vampires who couldn't see the context and wouldn't care if they could. Aro did not choose us for character.

Renata and Bella had reached the top of the stairs. She noted that Marcus must have had the bathroom remodeled and now she was trying to find a way to tell Bella that she needed to wash off the smell of the pigs without making her mad.

I wanted to go to her. I wanted it with a dull aching that gave pause to the quiet places of my mind. Somewhere, somewhere back in the most honest part of myself, I knew that the past few days' icy calm could not last. The cold had protected me, allowed me to look out at the ruin that I'd made of my life through a clear, solid wall. When it melted, when that wall fell, it would be time for me to taste fire again. I was like a heretic waiting in prison for the stake. If I was still locked inside, it meant the worst had not come yet.

"Very well," said Aro. I snapped back to my surroundings. "Let's say that I accept your proposal on its face, Brother. What then? We would have to determine exactly what about the human girl we saw five days ago allowed her to bloom into this unusual creature."

"It could have been Edward," Caius answered, "a side effect of his lifestyle, perhaps."

Aro was shaking his head, "No, you see, this remarkable young man has vivid memories of two of Carlisle's other children, Rosalie and Emmett, and they were both normal. No, we should not assume that this is entirely Edward's doing."

_There are always the blood relatives,_ the thought from Caius's mind sliced through me like a razor._ The girl must have had family somewhere._ His lips were opening. He was about to give the thought voice, and that would be very, very bad.

"She was willing," I blurted.

Aro and Caius both stared at me. So did everyone else.

Interrupting the elders during a counsel might have been a serious faux pas, but I had no intention of watching Aro drag Bella's loved ones into this while there was anything I could do to discourage him. I knew what I owed her memory. Gaining the Volturi's notice was not good for a human's lifespan, no matter the reason.

"She asked me to turn her," I went on, "many times." And if I had said yes, even once, neither of us would be here. I closed my eyes against the unwilling memory of Bella standing with me in the woods, fierce against my lies, swearing that she loved me more than any hope of heaven.

There was no way to know what would have happened, I reminded myself. It still would have cost her her family, her soul and her human future. That fate only seemed good when compared to this one. "How many of us truly understood the gift of immortality at the time it was being given? Bella spent months with my family, learning about our kind. Her calmness might be some trick of her nature or it might be that she simply knew what to expect."

In Aro's memory, I could see two sniveling urchins, twins, clinging to each other in a terror that his kind words could do nothing to dispel. He reached for the girl, clapping his palm against her rigid arm—

Aro pulled his thoughts away before I could fully realize what I'd seen, forcing his mind into the present.

"Control is a mental thing," I continued. "Perhaps mental preparation is part of it."

Aro shared a glance with Caius, raising his eyebrows. "It's as good a possibility as any, Brother."

"Yes," Caius answered, with an undercurrent of harshness. "And easy enough to test."

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drf24


	16. Ch 15 Intensity

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer.

This chapter contains sections that were written at different times. I've had the ending of this chapter reader for several months now, though I wasn't sure where I'd use it. Some of the parts with Renata are about two or three months old.

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"Maybe this was the part of me that I'd brought forward to be intensified in my new life. Like Carlisle's compassion and Esme's devotion. I would probably never be able to do anything interesting or special like Edward, Alice and Jasper could do. Maybe I would just love Edward more than anyone in the history of the world had ever loved anyone else. I could live with that." –Bella, _Breaking Dawn_

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Renata hovered at my elbow. She reminded me of a deer I'd nearly run over driving home to Charlie's one night. It had seemed to quiver on the wet road, full of leashed movement, and I couldn't tell if it was about to break left or right.

We were on a staircase, climbing. I was sure we could have moved much faster, but Renata seemed to want to walk at a human pace. I don't know if that was something that the Volturi just did for practice or whether moving any faster would have made her fly apart.

The truth was, I didn't want to move any faster either. Edward was behind us with Caius and Jane and Aro and Felix and and and—

_Jacob in Charlie's living room. Jacob in Charlie's living room. Jacob in Charlie's living room..._

_"Don't die, Bella. Don't go. Don't."_

The shaking in my hands stopped. It was getting easier. It seemed that all I had to do to keep myself from becoming a murderous killing machine was remind myself of what I had to hold it together to do. From what Edward had told me, this part of being a vampire didn't last.

He'd also said something about not being able to run away. I felt the still place in my chest get tight. Maybe we couldn't _run_ but we sure as anything had to _escape_. There was a way out of Volterra. There had to be. No way could we spend an eternity in this place with these people.

That was it. We'd escape. I'd go back to Forks and find a way to make things right with Jacob and then...

I gulped the dry air. My future was a big blank. I'd wanted to be a vampire for a long time, but not for its own sake. I wanted Edward, and I had to be a vampire to have him. The idea of becoming a vampire but _not_ being with Edward forever hadn't even occurred to me. There was no point to it. It was like a bad joke.

I tried not to think about the way he looked at me ...and the way he didn't look at me. I kept coming back to the look on his face in the hall. Even through the haze of my human memories, I could feel the flinch in the arms that had held me when Marcus had suggested that he...

I tried to remind myself that I'd already known that Edward didn't love me. I'd known for months. Sure, he didn't want me _dead_, had made terrible, terrible sacrifices to keep me from becoming dead, but I couldn't be sure that he wouldn't have done that for... well, maybe not _anyone_ but maybe anyone who'd come to Volterra to try to help him. Any innocent person. He'd have done it for Angela Weber. Even Lauren Mallory might have stood an even chance.

I would get to talk to Alice, at least. Even the thought of her made something wrench inside me. Edward had said she'd gotten home safe, but he hadn't told me any of the details. Once we got away from here, she and I could be friends again. The whole reason for cutting that tie was gone now.

That was it. The Cullens would help me get started. Maybe I could even live with them for a few years while I learned whatever it was you needed to know to be a vampire.

I breathed a little easier. I had goals. I didn't have any plan for how to reach them, but they were still good goals. Get out of here. Find Jacob. Find Alice. Then ...sit back and wait for time to end?

I pushed my thoughts back into the present. The future was too much to deal with.

Wherever this place was, it didn't look like anyone used it much. Dust motes spun in the air above us. Wide, short windows near the ceiling let in the early daylight while only showing a patch of pale blue outside. I wondered if it was just the style or a way of keeping people in the surrounding buildings from seeing in. There was so much that I still didn't _know_.

"Um, it's up here. ...Third floor." She was nearly whispering, like she was afraid.

I wondered again why Aro had picked her to watch me. If Jane's talent didn't work on me and Edward's talent didn't work on me, then what made them think that whatever this nervous little mouse could do would work on me?

And it certainly didn't seem like _she_ thought her powers would work on me. She seemed to cringe every time I moved, like I was going to explode or something. I hadn't thought a vampire could be timid until I'd met Renata.

We reached a landing. The door seemed well-used and clean. I reached for the handle.

"No," Renata said, too quickly. "We ...we go up one more."

"Okay," I said, wondering why she was making a big deal out of it.

"That way's the tower. They won't want you to go near it."

"The tower?" I asked. I couldn't remember seeing anything near here that looked like a tower from the streets outside except the clock tower, but then I couldn't remember much about my taste of Volterran daylight except trying to get to Edward.

"The wives live there," Renata explained. Her voice was firmer now. "I don't think they've left it in all the time since I've joined the guard. I hear that Sulpicia used to tend some of the roof gardens, but now she just tells me what to do."

Sulpicia? Wives? Huh?

"Sulpicia," repeated Renata. "Aro's mate."

"His what?" I asked stupidly. In my mind, I could process the idea that Aro would have a mate, but I couldn't think of anyone I'd ever met who'd seemed less likely to be with someone except maybe Caius. I did seem to remember Alice telling me about the Volturi, but somehow I'd taken her "two females," and assumed that she'd been talking about Jane or someone.

No... Aro's behavior toward Jane had been doting, but Jane wore a gray cloak and Aro wore black. She called him "Master," not "Father." She didn't even get to call him by his first name like Rosalie and Edward called Carlisle.

I couldn't help a little smirk. So Jane wasn't an evil little princess, just an evil little apple polisher. I was surprised by how much I hated her already. I didn't think I'd always been this mean. But then Lauren Mallory had never left Angela screaming in pain at her feet. It was a whole new world.

Renata was nodding her head liky a cherry on a shaking twig. "Sulpicia has been with Aro for thousands of years. Caius's mate is named Athenodora. I hear that Marcus used to have one too, but they say she died a long time ago."

Alice hadn't mentioned that, I remembered now. She'd said that only two females had joined the family. Maybe Alice hadn't know about the other one. Or maybe she wasn't real.

"I spend a lot of my time in the tower," Renata went on. "The masters like me to stay with them."

I looked back at her blankly. Why would Aro want Renata near his wife?

"You'll meet them," Renata told me. "It'll be Sulpicia or Athenodora who gives you your first cloak. For some reason, Aro and Caius always want the wives to do that. Just with the females," she added with a creaseless frown. "It's old-fashioned, I guess." I recognized that tone. She was only pretending not to understand so that she could brush it off. Whatever meeting the wives entailed, Renata was trying to make it sound less serious than it was. It was probably way past old-fashioned.

Was it like a debutante making her debut or a new household slave being trotted out for the mistress's approval? I fought back a shudder. I didn't know how to do either of those things. Either way, this was a new level to Volterra, a new way that the vampires here could make life difficult for Edward and me.

I eyed Renata's soot-gray cloak. Light gray for newcomers, dark gray for the guard, black for the elders... I suddenly pictured the wives wearing blue dresses. I was beginning to feel like I was trapped in _A Handmaid's_ _Tale_. I swallowed, unnerved to find that even that wasn't the same. Would I end up acting like the woman in _Handmaid's Tale_, trying to find little pieces of beauty or pleasure tucked into the cracks of my new life? I'd been doing anything to take my mind off how worried I was about my family. I let my eyes flick back to Renata. She looked back at me with a studied smile.

I had at least one thing in common with the woman from the book. I couldn't trust the person who'd been assigned to be my friend.

"It's up here," she pointed up the stairs.

What could I do? I went where she said.

It was only one floor up. This place had an airy, unfinished feel to it. The way the air leaked in and out, I could tell that there was a roof access nearby. Renata pointed to one of only two finished-looking doors and then stepped in front of me to turn the handle. We walked into what looked like a college dorm bathroom with a long, wide mirror over sinks that I suspected were mostly for show. I could see a shower head peeking over the side of one stall.

"Master Marcus was working on this part of the building," Renata said, "but he moved on to another project. Most of the washrooms are downstairs but this one is—Well I guess it's not important."

I tried to ignore her babbling. It was so strange to think of something as normal as a shower. Would the hot water still feel like—

I started. Someone was already up here. I opened my mouth to speak, but the other woman didn't say anything. She just stared back at me from underneath masses of heavy, tangled hair.

"Renata, who's—" I stopped. I'd looked over my shoulder and the woman had looked over hers, tangled hair sticking to the side of her face. I moved my hand. She moved hers. A thick, sucking dread seeped into my stomach.

She was my height.

She was wearing Edward's shirt.

"Who—" I couldn't get all the words out. I pointed. So did my reflection. But it wasn't _my_ reflection. It couldn't be my reflection. I didn't look anything like that!

"What's wrong?" Renata asked, but I could see the fear slipping back into her voice. Deep down in the one part of my mind that wasn't focused on the stranger wearing my clothes, I realized that she was getting ready to bolt.

I could feel my wrists shaking, my legs, my back. My breath came faster, filling my head with tiles, plaster, stale air, vampire scent and the pig smells that still clung to my clothes and skin.

"You have to calm down!" Renata pealed. There was a deer somewhere, telling the oncoming headlights not to panic.

There was a snarling sound that echoed off the tiled walls. There was a crash and a crack and a scream and I was looking at six small Renatas with their arms thrown over their heads. There was something jagged and powdery in my hands.

I rubbed my fingers together. It felt like sand against my skin.

"Okay..." Renata was muttering, but I couldn't be sure the words were meant for me. "Okay... Okay..."

I bit my lip and regretted it. My teeth were too sharp now. I crouched down to the floor and picked up a big, triangular piece of glass.

I'd smashed the mirror. I looked up at it. Check that, I'd smashed the mirror and a good chunk of the wall behind it.

_Well that ...that could have been worse, actually,_ I thought to myself, but I was still uneasy. I'd gotten upset and done some real damage, and I hadn't seen it coming. I hadn't even tried to stop myself.

_It's only a mirror_, I thought.

Quickly, like a child running her finger through a candle, I peeked at the reflection in my hand. A smooth-skinned stranger blinked back. I looked again. This mirror piece wasn't as big as the whole mirror. Maybe if I only looked at a little bit at a time, I'd be all right.

It was like someone had done an old Renaissance sculpture of my face. Intellectually, we all knew that not everyone from a given time period could have had the same puffy cheeks or the same perfect little rosebud mouths. The sculptors had worked in the sorts of features that were fashionable whether their subjects had them or not. I had been smoothed out and perfected to the point where no one would be able to recognize me on the street.

But the eyes... Good God, the _eyes_. They shimmered like chunks of red-hot rock, right where I was supposed to be. I felt a crunching in my hand, more gritty powder against my skin.

There was no Bella Swan left there. I'd been erased.

This wasn't how things worked. Something had to have gone wrong. Edward had shown me his old photo of himself with his parents, and he hadn't looked this different. Unless...

I tried to remember that photo, tried to see it as clearly as I could. It had only been a few inches long, I remembered, and the edges had all been blurred. Maybe Edward really had looked different back then. Maybe I'd just been projecting my real memories of seeing him in the flesh onto the blank spaces that the Victorian-era camera hadn't been able to fill in.

"You— Are you done?" Renata looked back at me, like she was afraid.

And I wasn't afraid of her. Her eyes were a dull red, just like the rest of the vampires here except Edward, but I wasn't afraid of her. I was almost sorry that I'd scared her.

I nodded.

"The... The shower's back there," she pointed. I already knew where it was. "I'll... I'll go downstairs and get you something to wear? Do— Do you know what size you are in ...never mind."

She slipped away like a doe darting between two trees.

I turned my head away from my mirror piece. There was still enough of it stuck to the wall to make trouble for me, and trouble I didn't want. For the past three hours I'd had the unpleasant sense that the smell of pigs was sticking to me like plaque on a tooth, and it looked like that was the only one of my many problems that I would be able to fix.

The shower stall looked normal. I half expected things to be backwards. On top of everything, I was in Europe, and they had different voltage in the sockets here or something. Who knew what else was different?

The water turned on and it felt like I could hear each individual drop hitting the floor tiles. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to force my brain to register the sound as one sound, to drown out the patterns and just feel, like I used to.

I gave up before the shower curtain was wet.

Even though I knew intellectually that the water must still be cold, it felt warm to me. Maybe I'd never feel cold again.

The labels on the bottles were in Italian, but I knew it was shampoo and soap. They smelled funny to me now—too many notes. Like the label on the shampoo bottle, it had too much information and all of it incomprehensible, but I scrubbed away like I hadn't seen water in years. My hands only slid against my new skin, though. I couldn't seem to get any traction. Nothing went any deeper than the surface.

I let the water run, rinsing it all away. It couldn't make me feel clean inside. It couldn't make me feel calm and well, like a hot shower was supposed to.

Some time passed—I didn't know or want to know how much—before I finally shut the water off and heard the last drops hitting the drain. I stood very still and listened, but of course I didn't hear anything. Renata might have been a mouse, but she was still a vampire mouse. She wouldn't make any noise.

I twitched the edge of the shower curtain aside. There was a neatly folded towel sitting where my clothes had been, my jeans and underwear and Edward's shirt. I felt a little colder as I realized I didn't know if they would be returned. I hadn't even checked my pockets one last time. For a second, I was worried about losing my passport. God knew that was the least of my problems, and the picture didn't even look like me any more.

I picked up the towel and dabbed at my face. I could feel the soft terry cloth, but it didn't make any impression against me, no gentle scratching like I remembered. I could feel it absorb the water off my cheeks and forehead, but it interacted with the element, not me.

Well at least I could dry my hair with the darn thing. I hadn't even combed it for days. I wondered if it would stay the way it was now or change as it grew out of the follicles in my scalp. Then I could watch my human life sink down past my shoulders little by little until the tips were finally trimmed off and thrown away.

I shook the towel out and got ready to wrap it around my middle. Renata might not be Felix but no way was I letting her see me starkers. I didn't care how scared that little—

"Bella."

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

The old stories about bloodhounds were true. Water really could confuse a scent. Now that I was out of the shower, I could tell, could wonder why I hadn't known he'd been there.

Carefully, I dragged the shower curtain partway down the rod and ducked just my head out. Edward was standing there as if he'd always been there, one hand on the glass-strewn countertop.

The next thing I knew, the towel was wrapped tight against me, covering me from my chest almost down to my knees. What was he doing here? I took a deep breath and realized that he'd been to all the same places I had today. He was probably just here to check on me and get cleaned up.

...which meant that I had to get out of the shower. Gingerly, I tugged the curtain out of my way and stepped onto the floor, one foot moving at a time, as if to test for traction levels.

I watched Edward's face as I moved. I had never, never been in this bad of a state of undress around him. Once, when I'd still been healing from Phoenix, he'd walked in on Alice helping me into my sweatpants. He'd been so mortified that he'd forgotten to mask his speed, turning his head to the side and backing away out my bedroom door before I could blink.

And now his eyes were on me.

And I was almost naked.

I should have been wondering what had happened downstairs. I should have been asking whether or not he was all right, but I couldn't say a thing. There was something coloring the eerie deadness on his face, something moving behind his still gold eyes. I knew he was troubled. I knew he couldn't have gotten away from Aro and Caius without some new weight added to what was crushing him, but somehow I didn't think that was what I was seeing.

I was pretty sure he was just looking at me.

My cheeks didn't flush. I had no shame any more. My heart didn't pound to give me a sense of time. My mind still raced, though. My thoughts were merciless, reminding me of everything I had ever—and still—wanted from this man.

Carefully, I reached out with my free hand. I didn't know what I'd been going to do, not really. I think I only wanted to touch his wrist, but he moved away from me smoothly, as if he'd always meant to.

"Renata left to fetch me something clean to wear," he said, breaking the silence. "I overtook her on the way up. She gave me these for you."

Edward held out the bundle of cloth. I accepted it silently with one hand, never looking away from him. Even talking about nothing, even in stepping away, he was the only thing I would ever want.

"I suppose you can change while I'm in the shower," he said. I nodded. I didn't trust myself to make a sound. In the velvet purr of his voice, he could have been reciting the classifieds and I'd have nodded.

Edward stepped around me, not even asking me to move, not even looking at me. I heard cloth and then the shower starting.

I gave myself a hard shake and forced my eyes onto the clothes that Edward had handed me. The style made me think that they were for someone at least five years older than I was, cut neat and simple. There was a short gray dress and a pair of simple pumps and stockings. I could tell from the feel of the cloth that it was good quality, but I couldn't read any of the labels.

I pulled the dress over my head, willing myself not to think that Edward was not five feet away from me, the water hitting his smooth white skin... I concentrated on deciding whether or not my new clothes fit well. I felt a pang as I wondered if Renata had sent my jeans away to wash them or burn them.

My hair was a mess, but I raked my fingers through it, fixing my eyes on the inert patch of ex-mirror where my face would have been.

The shower stopped and I heard a mild rustling of cloth as I pulled at the tangles. I felt more than saw or heard him move. His bare feet touched the floor steadily. He wasn't trying to sneak up on me, but I felt the hairs on the back of my neck go up all the same. He stepped up behind me, until he was close enough to whisper in my ear.

"Here," he said quietly, slipping something down onto the counter.

My eyes found a cheap, pale blue plastic comb. I wrapped my fingers around it, feeling the material give under my stone skin. It couldn't have cost more than three dollars back home, and God only knew what Edward had had to do to get it.

"Thank you," I mumbled,

I slipped my fingers around one hank of hair and dug away, starting at the bottom. I hadn't touched a comb since Alice and I had left the airport. There hadn't been any conditioner in the shower, and the going was rough. Eventually, I gave up and yanked. Split ends I could deal with.

Edward didn't move away, not touching me but never more than a few inches from my skin. He'd put his slacks back on, but he hadn't had a shirt since he'd given his last one to me. He'd scrubbed the scent of our breakfast out of his hair, and it was plastered in wet clumps along the sides of his face. Without seeing it, I was somehow sure that one stray drop of water was working its way down the back of his neck, like a finger tracing the perfectly spaced ridges of his spine.

I couldn't will myself to catch his eye, not even in the mirror. I kept slipping the comb into my hair, gathering it at the back of my neck and feeling the back of my hand brush just barely against his shoulder.

What I should have done was start asking questions. They'd left us alone but I couldn't believe we'd stay left alone for long. I should have been asking him about the Volturi, about being a vampire, but right now I couldn't make my mind single out any one thing from the smooth, dread-inducing dust storm that had covered up my life. I stared straight at the wet lock of hair between my fingers. At least I could understand now why he didn't want to look at me.

"Edward?" I said quietly. I didn't know what I was going to ask him, not really. Not to back away; I knew myself well enough for that.

He didn't answer, didn't move.

Slowly, I turned around. His eyes were squeezed shut, his lips barely parted over clenched teeth.

The sinking feeling in my belly pulled tight. Something had happened. Somehow, Caius or Aro or Jane or Felix had managed to take this awful situation and make it worse.

I put the comb down on the counter behind me, staring up into his face. "Edward, what is it?" I asked, as gently as I could.

_You can tell me,_ I wanted to say. The fact that we were here was as much my fault as his. _Please, Edward, let me help._

His chin turned to the side, not quite shaking his head.

"Edward," I said, reaching up to touch the side of his face with my free hand.

His head snapped back before I could do more than brush his skin. Before I could react, he'd taken half a step away, feet crunching against the broken glass on the floor.

His eyes were open now, and he was looking at me as if he hadn't realized that I'd been there.

"Edward?" I asked.

"Nothing," he said, seeming to shake himself, though I'd have sworn I never saw him move. "You don't have to— It's nothing."

"It's not nothing, Edward," I said, and I could hear my own amazement in my voice. Without meaning to, I took a step toward him. He took a step back in perfect time, as if we were dancing.

He looked me in the eye and I watched the deadness work its way across his face like vines pulling down a ruin. "Just concentrate on yourself, Bella," he said. "Don't worry about me."

I shook my head. Not worry about him? Here? It was impossible.

Whatever I'd seen in his eyes was sinking away, dropping out of my reach. I didn't want it to go, but I had no idea how to stop it.

I was still staring at him when the door slid open.

"I... brought you a shirt?" Renata all but whispered. "And ...those books you asked for?" It seemed that however worried she'd been about being alone in the room with me, she wasn't much happier being with Edward and me together.

Edward looked away from me, accepting a neatly folded white men's shirt from Renata without comment. "I have to go," he said simply. "He told me to be quick about my business here, and I can hear him wondering where I am."

I opened my mouth but couldn't think of anything to say to him. He turned and left without another word.

My fingers still tingled from the almost-contact as I watched him go. I could feel my thoughts writhing and knotting inside my head, twisting themselves tighter and tighter until it felt like something inside me would break.

I knew what I wanted this time. I wanted every cell. I wanted every minute. I wanted his eyes and his lips and his heart and his attention, and just _all of him_, and I knew that I would never stop wanting it.

"He got your dress wet," Renata noticed aloud.

I glared back at her, realizing a split-second later why I was angry. It wasn't my dress. It was the Volturi's dress. My clothes were a shredded blouse and a pair of bluejeans. Those were my clothes.

Renata turned away from me, walking across the glass to shake out the shower curtain. She moved gracefully, I noticed, never slipping on the smooth, powdered tiles.

...but then... I hadn't either.

...I was like them now, wasn't I? I blinked. No, not like them, like i_him_/i, and not just because I was stronger. I was the only other vegetarian here. I turned stared at the empty doorway, as if I could see the answer in his footsteps. In all of Edward's strange new coven, I was the only person whom he could consider an equal. Maybe not now, but once I'd figured out my way around...

I shook my head. What the hell was I thinking? Edward and I weren't going to stay here. We couldn't stay here, not with these horrible people. The longer we stayed here, the worse things would get.

Something in my knotted thoughts pulled smooth. The world seemed to flicker. An idea had formed out of the chaos inside me.

Suddenly it didn't seem so strange that Edward would think I could learn Chinese or that Aro could predict a war without Alice's help. The conclusions just _came_, dark and mathematical: It was only a matter of time. A person couldn't stay in a hostile area with one and only one friendly face and not come to love her. It was like I was back in pre-calculus, watching Mr. Evans trace an example on the board, tallying up the variables of our situation and Edward's character: As time approached infinity, the distance between him and me would approach zero. I would be what he needed, and he would appreciate me and then love me. It might not be the perfect, legendary feeling that I'd thought we'd shared through spring and summer, but an Edward who'd grown to care for me was still a very welcome thought.

I pressed my hands against my temples, glad, so glad, that Edward could not read my mind. Now that I'd had the thoughts, I couldn't un-think them. They were a little cruel and selfish and ...and I wished to heaven they were right. I'd been telling myself to just deal with it. Well I didn't want to deal with it, justly or otherwise.

Another thought snuck inside me, a memory, and I held back a snorting laugh. For a moment, I'd held hope, pure white and blazing, but now something had colored it. Long ago, Edward had told me that the transformation froze and enhanced certain parts of people's personalities. Carlisle's compassion. Rosalie's vanity.

And, apparently, my insane obsession with an unattainable boy. No more hallucinations for you, Bella, just supervillain-style scheming with a touch of hysteria.

It was the perfect irony, that I would become _this_ kind of vampire. I could have bought not having an ability like Edward or Alice. I'd spent most of my life in mediocrity, so I was sure that could have handled that pretty well. But instead I had to have _this_ as my superpower, to be made even _more_ pathetic than I'd been as a human. I had become a supernaturally enhanced clingy ex.

I laughed. It was either that or cry, and I didn't want to try to do that again. Renata looked over her shoulder at me, but I paid her no mind.

I inhaled again, slowly this time. The traces of him in this room were already fading, but he still smelled so good.

What would I be doing, really? Watch his back, support him, protect him when I could... So nothing I wouldn't do anyway. It wasn't as if I was planning to ensnare him with my wicked wiles—I was pretty sure I didn't even know how to do that in the first place.

Suddenly, everything felt better. I finally had a plan.

If I was going to be a monster, I might as well get started. After all, I had nothing but time and very little to do besides think.

I began to plot.

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	17. Ch 16 Eager

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer.

This chapter contains sections that were written at different times. I've had the ending of this chapter reader for several months now, though I wasn't sure where I'd use it. Part of the scene with Felix and Gianna was written last year.

EDIT: This chapter has undergone major changes as of July 2010.

No party other than the submitting author may alter the text of this work in any way.

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"It's not that you were ...more eager for immortality itself than just me?" –Edward, _Eclipse_

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I didn't go straight back to the feasting hall. I couldn't. I pressed both shoulder blades back against the wall and rammed the back of my head against the cinder blocks as hard as I could.

_Get a hold of yourself, Edward Cullen_.

It was getting to me. Volterra was getting to me. Aro, Caius, Felix, Jane, Demetri, even Bella in her way, they were all grinding me down, driving me into a corner. I felt like I needed to breathe but couldn't.

More murders. More lives snuffed away. This wasn't like looking the other way when Jasper's old friends came to visit. This wasn't like stepping aside to let Heidi herd her catch into the feasting hall. I would have to do it myself. I would have to do it with my own hands and my own venom.

I racked my brain trying to think of what Carlisle would say. He'd forgive me, I knew, not only for acting in my own defense and Bella's, but he'd forgive me my slow-wittedness. He'd forgive me for not being able to figure out a way _out_ of it.

I wished Emmett were there so we could sneak out of Esme's earshot and fight until this feeling was gone from me. I wished I had Rosalie to snipe at me. I wished I had Jasper and Alice to help me work out how I was feeling. I wished I were back in Forks, getting ready to slip into Bella's room where she could drown it all away. I wished I were home.

Well I wasn't home. This was Volterra. I'd learn my way in time. Once I was better acquainted with the ways of the coven, I'd find some outlet, some way of displacing my frustration. Until then, I would just have to make do, keep myself under control any way I could.

I shouldn't have felt grateful to Aro for letting me come up here. I shouldn't have felt it was a kindness that he didn't make me beg to be clean. And I'd felt so dirty. I still felt dirty. Worse, I knew I would get dirtier before it was all done. If it ever was done.

The image returned to me, crystal and perfect like the bright broken glass around us.

I just couldn't... I just couldn't...

She'd walked toward me, the edge of her towel caught in one smooth, white hand with the clear water dripping down and my mind had gone completely, blissfully blank. No fear. No guilt. Nothing. I'd shaken it off without realizing what it was, gotten in and out of the shower and dressed without looking at her. Through the sound of the water, I'd been able to hear the cloth against her skin, her small movements. At first I hadn't recognized what I was really imagining. At first, I thought I was only wondering if she was all right. Then, once I'd made myself as decent as I could, I'd raised my eyes to find her worrying at her hair.

I'd only meant to hand her the comb. I'd stolen it, just lifted it from Adrienne's pocket as I walked out the door. Aro would chastise me for it later, I was sure, but it could all be written off as harmless. And then the sight of her wrapping her hands around it... The old Bella had never just let me give her gifts.

I should have stepped away, retreated to a reasonable distance, but I hadn't wanted to. I was close enough to have felt the heat from her body if there had been any. I'd told myself that it was all right. It was perfectly fine for me to want to stay near my newborn.

But for a second, I forgot to manage myself. For a second, I'd forgotten that we were alone up here. No other vampires, no noise, no distractions.

And no thoughts. No scheming, screaming, terror, aggression, no plotting against anyone, innocent or not. She was a blank to me, and I loved her for it.

_Can I be like you?_ I thought wildly behind my eyes squeezed shut._ No words. Tell me I can be like you, dear creature._ Intellectually, I knew it was only that I couldn't hear her, but I didn't want to think about that. I didn't want to think about anything—not the crimes I'd committed or the ones I was going to commit.

And she was a creature—literally my creature. I'd created her, with my venom and in my mind, so she was like part of me, wasn't she? Had I created the original Bella as well? Had I only dreamed her up? Because if I'd only imagined her, then I couldn't really have destroyed her.

I was going mad. I was becoming what they all thought I was.

The ice that had settled across my mind over these past few days was leaving me. The shock of the experience was wearing off, so I was melting, sliding back to normal. And once that happened, there would be nothing between me and Volterra. I feared it. I feared it like I feared the fire.

I could hear her fingers slipping through her hair, slowly clearing away the tangles like I could not clear my troubled mind.

And through it all, her scent reached me, her sweet, painless, undeniably pleasant scent. I'd breathed in, quiet as I could, and I stopped trying to figure out what was going on inside me.

But then she'd said my name, touched my face with her hands. I'd snapped back. I could still see it clearly, her face, wide open in the pale light, eyes like two pools of molten rock.

They didn't frighten me any more, or at least, they didn't frighten me right then, but I allowed myself to see their true meaning.

A newborn.

...an innocent.

I'd believed her, in her cell, when she'd told me she hadn't wanted to kill the human. I still believed it, but right then I could _see_ it. She wasn't like them.

And she wasn't like me. She wasn't like what I was going to do.

_Stop me_, I'd thought into all that silence. _Stop me_. I couldn't say it out loud. I couldn't put any of my heaviness into her.

I cracked my head against the stone again, forcing myself back to the present. There was so much wrong with this situation that I didn't even know where to begin. I tried to shake it off, but it wouldn't go. It clung to my skin like a leech.

_Edward?_ Aro's call was sharper this time, and clearer. He was learning to think in ways that were easiest for me to hear, like a radio tuning in on the listener.

I took a deep breath of stale air. Whatever had happened upstairs, it was over. It would happen again, I was somehow sure, but for now it was over.

And I had work to do.

Aro and Caius told me what they wanted me to do next and I didn't say a word against any of it. I didn't even drag my feet. He would have known, one way or another.

I did wish they'd sent someone else to keep an eye on me though, Demetri or Richard, perhaps. Felix was being ...difficult.

The side of my face hit the wall with an unpleasant crack, but I managed not to make any sound more embarrassing than that. Felix was easily as strong as Emmett, and the building had been made quite solidly.

I'd caught a a mental image of my body pinned against the inner wall—much like it was at this moment—and felt a rush of air behind me. I'd known all morning that he was going to pull something like this, but I'd have thought he'd have picked a time with more witnesses.

Anthropologically speaking, this was his way of putting me in my place, showing me where I fit into the grand sceme of things in this clan. Funny how some things were only fascinating from a distance.

I wasn't sure why I wasn't fighting back. Perhaps it was strategic. Perhaps I didn't want him to know I could defeat him. Perhaps I didn't want myself to know that I couldn't. In any case, I'd been through high school too many times to believe that ignoring Felix would discourage him to the point of finding other entertainments.

_Why isn't he scared?_ Felix wondered. I'd fought him like a wildcat not a week earlier. He'd noticed that I was getting more jumpy, more like I'd been that day he'd brought me to Bella in her cell. He still wasn't too clear on what had made me go limp after that.

I was only pretending. The sight of the damned ox still made my hand tingle.

Felix's thoughts tended toward images, and right now I could see him playing this same scenario out in his memories. I thought I recognized Randall, but most of them were nameless, random things, even to Felix. Hadn't lasted long.

I brushed a few rock flakes off my clothes, trying to to feel smug at his frustration.

Felix snorted and turned on his heel. A second later, we were walking toward our next meeting as if nothing had happened.

He was thinking hard, reimagining our fight in Bella's cell, particularly the part where he'd snapped my shoulder joint between his hands and forced me to the floor, wondering what it would take to make me so responsive. Bella's presence seemed the obvious answer, but she was locked away until further notice, and he wanted to make me jump now.

But as we saw to our appointed task, and as the hours wore on, I realized Caius had had a reason for sending him, a reason other than my continued discomfort. I quickly found that, for such a brutish behavior toward me, Felix was remarkably restrained in front of the help. He even smiled. I could have sworn that I'd witnessed one of the humans think of Felix as "the friendly one." Of course, that probably had something to do with the fact that Felix had spent several decades learning to tone himself down just so that the humans wouldn't start leaking various bodily fluids whenever he walked into the room.

It was strange to think that Felix of all people was here to put my victims at ease. Volterra was a complicated place.

It was still early in the day, so we had hours to talk to them all. Receptionists, frontmen, lawyers... Anyone who had to interact with the public and who would be expected to be available during the day had to be human. From what I could tell, none of them knew the whole story—the whole story would make all but the most depraved of them pick up and leave. Most of them knew that their masters fit certain aspects of vampire legend, but from what I saw in their thoughts when Felix and I showed up to interrupt their work, they didn't know about our invulnerability or the quickness of our thoughts. One man, someone on the janitorial staff, even seemed to believe that we'd die in sunlight.

It made sense. The less they knew, the less they could report if they ever snapped and started blabbing. And humans did not need to know the truth to serve us, did they?

Humans who served poorly became food. Humans who served well were too valuable to remove from their positions ...or at least they had been until Aro and Caius got curious.

We were partway through our task. Aro had given me a list of questions to ask, which he hoped would stimulate my victims to think of the information that he truly wanted, information about their mindsets, fears and hopes. He could have just told me to ask them, but he was still too intrigued by how I'd tricked Bella's location out of Gianna and Demetri the day I'd arrived. By ordering me to use the technique on others, he was collecting information on me as well.

No matter. I would do as I was told. That would keep both of us safe.

I wondered what she was doing. I couldn't help it. Renata would have returned within minutes of my departure. I pictured her wearing the clothes Renata had brought her. They must have seemed so alien on her skin, nothing like what the human Bella would have either picked out for herself or worn at Alice's request. Bella had preferred to dress like a boy except when my sister made her dress like a girl. Renata had given her women's clothes.

I realized that I'd missed the second half of Felix's instructions.

"I said it's over here," he snarled, as if the words itself were the insult.

I looked straight ahead, refusing to rise to him. I'd been through too many high schools and deflected the attentions of too many bullies to worry about Felix now. He would get more creative once he realized that, but for now, I had a window.

My feet echoed on the lobby floor. Gianna looked up and watched us enter, glazing on her calm, professional smile.

It wasn't only that she would be the first woman I'd talked to. It was that she wasn't a person at all. Most of the Volturi servants had a certain coldness or selfishness to their thoughts. One of them had even told me flat-out that he wanted to know what it felt like to kill other humans for food. They might have been chosen for their excellence in accounting or property law or estate management, but the Volturi servants were the dregs of humanity.

And this one... I set my teeth. Time to just get through it.

Gianna watched me with calm pale green eyes. She was proud of them and of her northern Italian looks, I could see. I noticed that she tended to think more about her appearance when Felix was present. I'd watched her make a mental note to check her makeup, to make sure that her reserved elegance was polished to a steady shine, once she'd recognized his footsteps in the hall.

I tried to imagine her red-eyed and raving. The dissonance could have shattered glass.

"Good day, Gianna," I said as politely as I could stomach. "The masters wish for me to speak with you."

Her mind was quick; I had to hand her that. She immediately thought of several possible reasons why I could be doing something so odd. I was the first new addition to the coven that she'd personally seen. Perhaps having new vampires talk to the human servants was some kind of orientation. Perhaps this was another internal reorganization and I had been brought in specifically, like a consultant. Perhaps I was screening the employees to see if the herd needed to be thinned again.

From there, her thoughts moved to her secret list of all the failures and infractions that she'd caught other humans in since the last audit. _Enrique? He left that error in the tax forms last year. No, Gabriella. She's been talking about work to that little boyfriend of hers._ Yes, she had two good candidates, coworkers who'd be easy to sabotage, to throw under the bus to make herself look less expendable.

I felt my lip twitch. It seemed that there was a whole underside to the tiny subculture of vampire-serving humans that none of the vampires had bothered to find out about. Gianna had to be at least half the schemer Caius was. God but I hated this woman.

Of course, one of the conclusions she came to was the right one.

_Could it be my time coming?_ she thought with a leashed, cautious eagerness. I took it in. I took it all in because it was what Aro wanted me to do.

Gianna had noticed my pale gray cloak, missing nothing. If she'd heard that I was one of her masters now, then she knew I was a low-ranking one. She looked to Felix, who smiled encouragingly. He even managed to look sincere.

Gianna's blood type and family history were already on file, but I asked anyway. She had one aging mother and a brother who'd died in a car accident years earlier. It wasn't on Aro's list of questions, but I was curious. Learning more about Gianna was as hypnotic as watching ants tear a cattarpillar apart.

"It's so good of you to look after your mother like that," I said flatly.

"Thank you," she answered with professional blandness.

I watched her thoughts.

...nothing. I blinked, feeling something almost like surprise stirring in me. Nothing? I checked again. She was wondering why I was staring. That was all.

"It must be a big responsibility," I prompted again.

Again, nothing.

Well, Aro wasn't going to be happy. I'd gone through every human in the compound, and none of them shared my lost Bella's attitudes about becoming a vampire or anything else. I knew why my Bella had wanted to become a vampire. I was thawed enough that the memory could stab me. She'd thought it was the only way she could be with me. She'd thought that time would separate us, that I would no longer love her once she grew old.

But then...

I didn't like these thoughts. They sounded like Aro's voice in my head, politely doubting that anything was real or good.

It was possible that my Bella had been more eager for immortality itself than for just me.

That was the answer that I saw in those green eyes. That was the motive that was buried behind Gianna's surface thoughts. Time treated women cruelly, Gianna believed. To her mind, youth was the only kind of beauty that was worth anything, but by the time a girl had enough money or accomplishments to truly enjoy life—to feel _safe_—her youth had usually drained away.

Gianna didn't love some man. She didn't love anything. But she did have one thing in common with Bella: her fear of aging.

"It's not like that," I whispered.

"I'm sorry, sir?" she answered.

"It doesn't feel like that, being one of us," I said. I didn't even know why I was talking. This creature not deserve any help or advice. "Time would become a whirlwind around you, sweeping away everything you know. It's like running full-tilt on a treadmill just to keep up. We never rest."

Gianna stared back at me, her flat eyes a little wider, a little deeper. Suddenly I could feel Felix glaring at me. _The fuck is he doing?_ Slowly, I realized my faux pas. It was the same reason why Gianna's composure was slipping.

No one had told her that there was anything bad about being a vampire before.

They'd told her about _feeding_, but that was only bad for the fodder. For the vampire, it usually felt pretty great. They'd told her about hiding during the day, but they'd also told her that it wasn't because they could burn to death. They'd told her about living forever. They'd told her about power.

No one had ever talked about how tiring it all was, about long boring hours pretending to be a high school student just so that my family could stay in place for twelve years instead of eight, of being disrespected and treated like a dumb kid by men half my age and a quarter my IQ. They hadn't told her about suffocating black years waiting for something without knowing what it might be, and then having it ripped away to face an eternity without. They hadn't told her anything about that.

"There's more that you need to know," I said quietly. Why was I still talking? I tried to imagine Carlisle in my place. He'd want to help Gianna, I was sure. He wouldn't even think about her shriveled little husk of a soul.

Maybe that was it. Maybe it was that Gianna, as a human, still technically had a soul, however tarnished. Maybe if someone told her more about her masters, she'd ...what? Repent her ways? Gain admittance through the pearly gates? Because the Volturi certainly weren't going to let her leave and live a different life just because she'd grown a conscience.

A quiet growl built in Felix's throat, not loud enough for Gianna to hear.

Felix's thoughts were wordless but clear: I was to knock it off, and now. I shrugged. It seemed to satisfy him, and he turned his attention back to Gianna.

I felt my eyes narrow at my diligent "partner." His thoughts were taking an interesting turn. He had no particular feeling for Gianna. He knew that she liked him and he liked that she liked him but there was no more to it. It was as if she were a pretty pedigreed cat that let him stroke its neck. Gianna's thoughts were far more guarded. In the nearly eight years that she'd held her position, she'd seen seductresses come and go. She might return a smile when it was given, but anything more had stayed firmly in the realm of her own private imaginings. She reasoned that there would be centuries for romance after she was turned, so she put all her energy toward that goal. Her strategy was professionalism.

Felix was another matter. For all that he'd spent half the day dragging me—sometimes literally—around the compound, Felix hadn't given much thought to Aro and Caius's plan. Demetri had figured out what they were thinking and was quietly composing his opinions, but Felix just hadn't bothered to to piece together what the nuts and bolts of his daily actions might have to do with making more calm newborns.

...Until now. Now, Felix was visualizing what Gianna would look like with marble-pale skin, eyes brilliant crimson and a newborn immortal's... stamina. His image was a lot less discordant than mine had been.

_Not bad_, he mused. _Maybe a little skinny around the hips..._

Halfway across the world and I was back in high school. I shook my head in disgust.

Felix narrowed his eyes at me.

_New guy is messing around in my mind again_, he thought with displeasure.

"Believe me, I'd rather not," I informed him.

"Stop that or I'll stop it for you," he told me with a hint of a growl.

That was right, I realized bitterly. None of my new covenmates knew me. Jasper, Emmett, Alice and Rosalie were all used to the fact that their thoughts were not private around me. Felix would have to become used to it. The question was what kind of trouble he would start before he did. Felix already knew my biggest weakness, but there were plenty of other things he could use against me if he were of a mind to figure them out.

"You were shouting," I said coldly.

"I don't care if I'm singing the goddamned _Pirates of Penzance_," sneered Felix. "Stay out of my head."

Should I tell him that it wasn't something I could control? Aro knew all the details of my gift, but how much would he bother to share with his "dear ones"?

All of it, I decided, if he thought I was purposefully keeping secrets.

"It isn't up to me," I said simply. "I can hear your mind whether I want to or not."

In the corner of my mind, I heard Gianna's thoughts shift in understanding. She deliberately refrained from asking what we were talking about.

"You can't blot them out at all?" Felix asked slyly. In his imagination, I saw myself twitching on the floor as Felix blasted countless decibels of _The Mikado_ into my unwilling brain.

All right, what was with all the Gilbert and Sullivan?

Gianna had been perfectly silent throughout our whole exchange, even though it would have made no sense to her at first. The perfect servant. I wondered what role she would serve in the coven if Aro decided that I should turn her. Caius had Bella if he needed more readers, and Gianna certainly wasn't a warrior.

"Thank you for speaking with us, Gianna," I said, and it was only a little difficult. My mother had raised me too well for me to let my manners slip around a lady, even if Gianna did not deserve the title.

"What, already?" asked Felix. He was only surprised that it hadn't taken so long, but Gianna's thoughts grasped around it like a vine around a branch. Was he reluctant to leave so soon, she wondered.

"I've got what the master needs," I answered.

Of all the Volterran servants, Gianna was the only one who even came close to being like Bella, and she only did so in one respect. If Aro and Caius did not order me to turn her, what then? They were both too interested to abandon the project here. I wondered sinkingly if this meant I'd be sent out into the city to identify and kidnap some other human victim. The thought was like bile in my mouth.

And I knew I wouldn't draw the line there. I knew that I would do it.

I turned away, back toward the audience chamber. Aro was still there, and if he wasn't, I could use the extra minutes to figure this out. With my thoughts absorbed on the grim task ahead of me, I almost missed the warning.

As suddenly as I could, I ducked down and to the side, shoes squealing against the stone floor as I slid into a crouch, shielding my head as I waited for Felix's shadow to pass over the place where my body had been.

Only...

I turned back toward the lobby, a warning prickle in my shoulder blades that had nothing to do with any imminent threat of bodily harm.

_Little rabbit can jump_, Felix thought with a grin, standing exactly where he had been when I'd first turned my back on him.

Damn.

Damn damn damn... He'd figured it out. He hadn't really meant to attack me, I realized. He'd only thought about it, and it had looked real. Like triggering Alice's gift of clairvoyance, once Felix resolved to do something, it looked real.

_Master's new pet..._ he sneered.

I was in for it now.

Felix lunged again, for real this time. I ducked. I was still faster than he was, getting clear easily.

_Oh, not too good to dodge me now..._

He was enjoying it. Damn.

He was pretty quick for his size, I thought. Our fight in the cell hadn't given him much chance to use that. But he also knew this place better than I did. He'd had this fight before, in this stretch of hallway, with a dozen other new members of the guard. He'd used the same moves.

...which meant he didn't have to think about them.

When it came to this kind of fighting, I noted as a marble-hard fist hit the wall six inches from my face, Felix worked from his gut. Trying to read that was like trying to watch a fish swimming well below the water. I could only see ripples.

I managed to dodge before he could get his arms around me, but I broke in the wrong direction and he snagged the back of my cloak.

_Damn..._

One massive hand got me under the chin, the other behind my head. My arms and legs could flail all they wanted, Felix thought. I wouldn't get loose, not without a goddamned miracle.

_Okay, you got me_, I thought. _Now what?_

Felix's mind flickered quickly through several possibilities. I barely had time to register what he was about to do before the air was rushing past my face like an open wind.

I tried to brace myself, to land on my feet, or at least on my lower half, but somehow I got twisted around. I raised my head off the marbled floor in confusion before I realized that Felix had been thinking about throwing me in another direction, toward the stairs, and I'd ended up back with my face against the pillar.

I got to my feet quickly, assessing the situation.

There was no way I could win. This wasn't like the fight in Bella's cell. Felix didn't _want_ anything except to toss me around a little, and although I could sense that the noise was starting to attract some attention from other vampires, he wasn't doing any of this for show. The sensible thing to do would have been to give up, go limp, not give Felix any more satisfaction than he would get from pounding an unresponsive corpse.

...I dropped into a crouch, eyes narrowing. Our report to Aro and Caius would just have to wait.

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	18. Ch 17 Questioning

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer.

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"There was a deep, rumbling growl, and then a high-pitched keen that was horribly familiar. The sound cut off quickly, and then the only sound was a sickening crunching and snapping." –Bella, _Eclipse_

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His hair had fallen into his eyes again. I wondered why he was letting it get so long. Maybe it was Alice who'd made him cut it on schedule. Maybe...

_Focus, Bella_.

I pulled a breath in and opened my mouth.

"Edward, why did you want me to pretend to be your ...mate? I can think of a hundred things it could be, but I need to know which one's right."

"Edward, what's happening to you? What are they making you do?"

"When are we going _home_?"

Edward looked up, setting the language book down on the little table that I'd been using for a desk. I still wasn't allowed to roam around unescorted, but at least this place was better than a steel-braced cell.

"Did you say something?" he asked.

I shook my head.

The days were running together. I didn't need to sleep any more or eat all that often, so I didn't have any of my usual markers except the sound of that damned clock tower, and after days of trying, I was finally able to tune that out. I had my own ways of counting time, anyway.

He'd been to see me five times. Today made six. I didn't know how many days had passed since my audience with Aro and Caius, but he'd been to see me five times, and they didn't let him come every day.

Sometimes he'd bring me a new book or we'd study the languages together, and that almost seemed like we were back in Charlie's kitchen going over Spanish verbs or quadratic equations. "Almost" because back then I'd been a lot more trouble, needing to repeat and repeat the same information before I really learned it. I could hardly blame Edward for getting bored with me and leaving. I was still in awe of Edward's intellect. He would tell me things about Chinese culture or Italian history that made the whole world seem fascinating, but my memory was sharper now. I wasn't holding him back.

He never talked much, not about anything we really needed to talk about. And I was no help. Every time he left, I'd think of a million things I should have asked him and every time he showed up again, I'd forget them all. I told myself that it was enough to sit near him and see that he was all right ...but I could see him, and I knew he wasn't all right.

One day he'd kept dropping things. I finally realized that his left hand didn't work. Another day it was his neck; it wouldn't turn all the way. There had been a strange scent in the air that had reminded me of Felix.

He never told me. Renata wasn't talking either. If Caius was going through with his making-more-newborns plan, I wasn't going to find out about it until they let me leave this part of the compound, and from what I'd seen of the Volturi, I was in no hurry for that to happen.

His visits never lasted long. Like Superman on that _Lois and Clark_ show that Renee had made me watch with her, he'd always get called off at the worst possible moment, answering a voice that I couldn't hear. Except instead of some teenager stuck in an earthquake and calling for help; it was a megalomaniacal vampire overlord who wanted to poke at his new toy some more.

Renata usually took Edward showing up for an invitation to run off. I didn't mind that either. She might be an A-negative-guzzling monster, but that didn't mean she didn't have things to do. I saw her enough to be sick of her anyway.

But Renata wasn't my problem. I didn't plan on being here long enough for her to become one. First I had to get Edward to trust me. Then I had to show him that I didn't have to be a millstone around his neck. Then maybe he'd come close to wanting me like I wanted him.

There was that feeling again, that nagging, good-girls-don't-treat-boys-like-toys voice in my head that sounded vaguely like Renee circa 2002, not that she'd needed to tell me. I'd been invisible in middle school.

And it wasn't like I was planning anything bad, not really. What was so awful if I got him back by being nice to him? Or by helping the both of us escape?

Only none of that was going to happen if I couldn't get over myself and ask him what the hell was really going on. How hard would it be, really?

But the look on his face... He'd been so angry when Marcus had told him that I should be his mate. I didn't really want to know why. I'd been through too much too fast. I wasn't sure I could handle it.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

I didn't open my eyes, nodding calmly. I didn't answer. I let the quietness come back. I didn't know why he'd stopped to talk to me like this, but he was trying. He was trying to do something; I just didn't know what it was. Maybe he didn't either.

There were footsteps on the stairs. Stupid Renata was back. I tried not to be mad. She was just doing her job, and right now her job was to not be a total bitch to me, so I might as well be nice about it, even if Edward wasn't going to open up with any vampires around.

I grit my teeth. With any _other_ vampires around. I shouldn't have had to keep reminding myself, but now that I was a little used to my new body, I kept _forgetting_. It wasn't as if I was bending steel or smashing boulders every day. But Edward had been right: now that the worst of it was over, I felt like me again, as ordinary and boring as I'd ever been. Sure, learning Italian wasn't as hard as I'd expected it to be, but for all I knew this wasn't any different from taking extra-strength Ritalin.

Edward looked up, half-rising from the table.

"He wants you," I said. It wasn't a question.

He nodded. "Renata is going to say."

I pressed my lips together. "I'm going with you," I decided impulsively.

He shook his head. "Bella—"

"I'm fine!" I snapped. "I promise, Edward, I'm not going to go ballistic in the middle of Volterra."

"Bella," he said, putting his hands on my shoulders and holding my gaze like there was nothing else in the whole world, "Bella, the less these people notice you, the better. Aro hasn't decided how he wants to play you yet, and the longer it takes for him to make up his mind—"

"What?" I asked. "Will it get us home faster?"

Edward's mouth closed.

The door opened slowly. I guess Renata wanted to give us a chance to scream or something in case we were talking about something private.

"Edward?" Renata's voice was tentative, as usual, but there was an edge to it that I didn't quite like. "Master Aro says for you to come downstairs. There's a—"

"I know," said Edward, rising quickly. I did too, my chair and his scraping across the floor in unison.

"I'm coming with you or I'm following you," I said. "You can pick."

"_Stay here_," he all but snarled. And he was gone, moving faster than I'd seen him move since that day in the baseball field.

I made a beeline for the open door. Renata grabbed my wrist, but I jerked my arm forward and pulled loose. It seemed odd, easier than it should have been. Maybe I'd had my hand twisted just right, like in those self-defense classes that Renee had dragged me to when I was thirteen.

I could hear Renata making some sound behind me, but I didn't know whether she was following me or just collapsing on the floor into a pile of dust. I didn't care so long as she left me alone.

I figured I could find the audience chamber, but I didn't know for sure that that was where Aro wanted Edward to be. The anxious tapping of understated designer shoes behind me told me that Renata had finally figured out that I wasn't coming back. I moved faster. I didn't want her to catch me and drag me upstairs. That room might have been less oppressive than a cell in the bowels of the building but it still wasn't where I needed to be right now.

I followed the echoes of Edward's footsteps down the stairs and then through the hallways. By then, I could hear the rest of them. The place wasn't even close to empty. There were muffled words through the walls. It sounded like there were dozens of people packed into Aro's throne room. I tallied up the arithmetic quickly. That would mean that all of them was there, even the people who were supposed to be working.

Edward hadn't looked back, but I could see the tightness in the back of his neck as I caught up to him. I wasn't feeling too secure myself. Whatever was going on in there, it was something special, and I'd seen the Volturi's idea of business as usual filing into that room for the slaughter. Maybe this hadn't been the best time for me to try to push the envelope.

Well there was no turning back now. I reached Edward in time to put my hand on his elbow. I saw his chin move toward me slightly, but his lips stayed pressed together. I felt a momentary relief when he didn't push me away. He was the one who'd asked me to pretend to be his mate, weird as that was, and while I wasn't too clear on what counted as a Volturi PDA, I was pretty sure a vampire was allowed to touch her mate on the arm in public.

He pushed open the doors and we stepped in.

I didn't need Jasper's gift to know that something was wrong, even for Volterra. The tension in the room was so thick that I barely noticed Renata slipping in behind us, almost hiding behind Edward as she sidled her way into the crowd, which was pressed two rows thick against the outer wall.

I was the only one not wearing a cloak. Edward was the only one who didn't have his pulled up over his head. Everyone was looking in at something near the center of the room. I wanted to stay near the edge, but Edward elbowed his way in, and I wasn't about to leave him behind.

There were a few cold looks and at least one gasp. On the other side of the chamber, Demetri blinked twice and then motioned for two other vampires to change positions, silently placing themselves between the elders and the two of us. I saw someone I didn't recognize mutter "newborn" and shake his head, but most people weren't paying any attention to me. Or to Edward for that matter.

There was an evil shriek from somewhere in the middle of the room. I couldn't see what had made the sound, but through a break in the necks and hoods and shoulders in front of me, I could just make out Jane's beatific smile. With a cold, sinking feeling, I shifted a little to the side so I could see.

There was a man in the middle of the audience hall, right above the drains. He had hair the color of straw. He also had Felix standing behind him holding his right arm hard behind his back, forcing him down onto his knees three yards in front of Caius's throne.

I could make out that his face was white and smooth, but something about the way he was holding himself made me think of bruises and broken teeth. Somehow, I imagined that his left eye, the one I couldn't see, must be swollen shut. The poor guy was breathing hard, muscles gone limp. The fight had gone out of him long before we'd gotten here, not that Felix looked like he had any intention of letting up.

"What happened?" I whispered to Edward.

Edward just barely turned his chin in my direction, but didn't answer. His hand slid down and tightened on my wrist.

From where I was standing, I could see just enough of the side of Felix's face. The answer ran down his thick jawline into the bare hint of a venom-gleaming tooth in his tight, smug smile. I suddenly understood what was happening. It was the same thing that had happened to Edward, Alice and me.

This vampire was on trial. And it looked like he was already guilty.

The Volturi were lined up around Felix and his prisoner like evil spirits around a blood sacrifice, forming a thick, gray wall separating him from either the elders or any route of escape. The drawn hoods, the formed ranks all gave a sense of implacable discipline. This wasn't the pandemonium of a crowd out for blood; it was quiet and cold, like the steel bars that had kept me from digging through the walls of my cell. Even so, there was still an undercurrent of menacing violence so thick that I could feel it welling up around my calves like the first waters of some terrible flood. I found myself inching closer to Edward.

My eyes found their way to Aro. He was staring intently at Edward, and I felt sure that they were having another conversation that no one else could hear, like they had on the day I'd been turned. I watched Edward's jaw flex. He seemed to nod, except that it was less like he was moving and more like he was shrinking, like the muscles in his neck couldn't hold his head up the way they had just a second before. It was like watching someone drag a black Sharpie back and forth across the Mona Lisa.

Stiffly, like a marionette, Edward looked away from Aro, from me, from anything but the man in the center of the room.

"We found him outside the Cattedralle, Master Caius," said a high male voice. I looked through the forest of cloaked shoulders and found Jane's brown-haired twin standing near Felix. "Felix was kind enough to leave his other duties and help me escort him here."

Caius was turning something over and over in his hand. It was made of some dark metal or other material, and it was giving out a crackling energy that made me want to grind my teeth together. I couldn't tell what it was from here, but I didn't like spiders and I didn't like fish guts, and I _really_ didn't like that thing.

"Not a crime..." the captive's voice was a dull, sibilant hiss, like he'd already screamed himself raw. "Not a crime to just come to Volterra—"

"You are a spy!" snarled Caius.

"No!" the man answered with an edge of panic. "I'm no spy. I'm only—"

"Silence," Caius said with absolute firmness, like the butt of a staff cracking against the floor. The man stopped talking. I would have too. "Jane!"

I didn't have time to shut my eyes before the captive vampire threw his head back and howled. I couldn't see where Jane was standing, but I could picture her face, bland and pleased, just like it had been when she'd turned her gift on Edward. I could feel my teeth crack together.

"Enough," Caius cracked, and the scream broke off into a hoarse panting.

"I'm—I'm only h-here to r-report—" the man's breath snagged. "N-nomads near my coven have b-been—"

"You are in league with our enemies," snarled Caius as Felix gave the man's arm another sickening wrench.

"No!"

Beside me Edward shook his head. "He's lying," he said quietly.

Not many heads turned. The Volturi were too disciplined for that. But I could see red eyes flickering like curious coals. Except for one pair. Aro's gaze was steady, hovering first on Edward and then on the prisoner with a heavy confidence. I realized with a chill inside me that Edward had been reading and recording the strange vampire's thoughts, on Aro's orders.

Edward didn't look away from the man on the floor. His pale hair had fallen into his eyes, which were fixed on Edward with a growing confusion.

"The Romanians contacted him outside of Budapest," Edward said, more strongly this time. "He's their man."

I saw Edward's lower eyelids flex. "He was only supposed to bring a petition, a report about local nomads misbehaving, as he says. He was supposed to get a sense of the Volturi's numbers and the layout of the stronghold and report back. Nothing more."

"What did they offer him?" Caius asked harshly.

I saw Edward's lower eyelids flex. "More territory," he said at last. "Once the Volturi were overthrown. He was to report to a man named Stefan."

A low, growling murmur rippled through the room as Edward spoke the name, but Aro didn't miss a step. "Does anyone else in his coven know?" he asked conversationally.

The prisoner was looking at Edward with unadulterated horror, like a man who's been told that his eyes are to be torn out and sees the tongs in front of him. I saw his head shake to the side. "N-nobody—! Nobody knew but me, I swear!"

Edward didn't move. His intent expression didn't change. He was made of stone.

"Edward," said Aro. No "young Edward," no "my boy." There was no indulgence in his tone, not today.

"His mate knew," Edward said at last. "Lucia." Edward pronounced each syllable, each sound like a suffocating rain, as if he were talking about something that had happened long ago. "He keeps nothing from her."

The prisoner was shaking his head. "No," he said. "No, no, I'll take the punishment. I did it all alone. There's no need—" his words dissolved into a tortured, gasping cry. It took me a second to realize that it was because Jane was at him again.

When I'd been eight years old, I'd found an armadillo next to the road. It had been hit by a car, but not all the way. Its tail and most of its hind legs had been crushed, and there had been something leaking out of its belly, but it was still dragging itself along. Renee had told me to keep away, but I didn't. It had been making the weirdest noises, and I'd never seen anything dying before.

I hadn't thought that a vampire could be pitiful.

I couldn't help him, I realized. I couldn't even put my hands on him and tell him it was going to be all right.

He had red eyes, like the other vampires here. He was a killer. But at the same time, I knew that look. I'd seen that look on Edward's face before Alice, Jasper and I had fled to Arizona to escape James. Whoever this vampire was, whoever his mate was, he loved her. He didn't care who she'd killed or what she'd done. He just loved her.

And Edward was going to tell the Volturi where she lived so that Jane could go and get her. I knew that like I knew that the sun was going to set and come up and set again.

I felt like my insides were a raw egg that was cracking open. I felt like a white rat stuck inside a thick, glassy bubble. I was pushing and pushing on the sides of my cage, only able to budge it a tiny bit at a time. All the same, I wasn't sure I wanted to get out. I was safe in here.

I closed my eyes, throwing myself against what was happening with my useless, defective mind. I pushed out until I felt like I could reach him, even imagined that I could see him like I'd seen Edward the day I'd been turned.

In the back of my mind, I noticed that it wasn't as strong this time. Maybe my new brain wouldn't let me hallucinate like when I was human, but instead of a steady ray of light like I'd felt with Alice and Edward, this vampire was fluttering like some luminescent butterfly, bright but unsteady, like a radio station that I couldn't quite tune in on.

I thought about wrapping my arms around him and the feeling got clearer. It was as if this strange vampire were part of me, and he felt so alive that it broke my heart.

"Felix," Aro said blankly, and the sound snapped me back to reality. I was in my own skin, standing on my own feet, holding on to Edward's right sleeve for dear life.

There was a throat-deep, gurgling scream accompanied by a discordant crunching and tearing, like someone wrenching apart a security door. I felt my shoulders hitch, my breath snagging in my lungs. I think I made a noise, but it was drowned out. The crowd had given up a roar in time for Felix to grab the man's remaining arm, one foot braced against the middle of his back. Two more vampires, quick as shadows, jumped forward from the ranks and took hold of the man's neck and right leg.

"Wait," Caius held up one hand and it all stopped.

"Edward," Caius's voice was like crows cawing to let each other know there was dying meat nearby. "Where is this man's coven? The mate in particular, the one who knew of his treachery."

The prisoner's eyes were locked on Edward's, coal-bright and rolling onto flat, still amber. His head was shaking side to side.

I saw Edward's eyes close, his lower lip tensing before he pressed his mouth into a thin, cold line.

"Edward," Aro echoed. His voice wasn't as harsh as Caius's but there was more finality to it. If Caius was a crow, then Aro was a tiger, too strong to need to make any noise.

Edward didn't say anything, didn't budge, didn't move.

"Edward, we cannot let this pass. I will not explain myself to you again. Where are the other criminals?"

I saw the prisoner's lips moving. There was no breath, no sound, but his eyes were fixed on Edward and I could see his lips moving, forming the same words over and over.

Edward took a long breath and opened his eyes. "They're still in Budapest. You will find them in the Rakosmente district," he said to Caius. "The female Lucia and another male, though they share their shelter with passing nomads. There is a warehouse where they hide during the sunlight. He thinks of it in images, so I don't have an address."

"Are any in the coven gifted?" asked Caius.

Edward stared at the prisoner for a long moment and eventually shook his head. "I don't think so." Edward seemed to shake, to give a twitch in my arms. "I don't think so, Master," he corrected himself.

Caius nodded to Felix, who braced his leg and heaved. There was a hideous wailing of abused metal that made me want to weld my palms to my ears.

"What else did you have planned?" Caius demanded of the prisoner

"Tell them." Edward's whisper was so quiet that I couldn't be sure anyone had been meant to hear. "Just tell them."

"N-nothing..." It was only the empty outline of a word. Felix wasn't letting the man get any air into his lungs, but I could understand it, and that meant that every vampire in the room could understand it. "J-just supposed to count you and go back..."

Edward was shaking his head. "There's more," he said. "I can't tell what it is, but there's more."

"Quite all right, young Edward," Aro said, only a trace of smugness in the crystalline elegance of his voice. Uncannily graceful, he moved down the steps until he was just out of arm's reach. "I find that I would rather see all this for myself anyway. Felix," he said companionably, "would you be so kind?"

"Master, he's cooperated," Edward said out loud. "Let Alec use his gift."

I looked from Edward to Aro to Alec and back. Use his gift? Meanwhile, hooded faces had turned to gawk, accompanied by a discontented muttering. Caius stared Edward down like a man with a flea pinched between his two fingers. Aro's expression stayed mild, but there was something behind his eyes, something I couldn't place.

"There are no witnesses here, Masters," Edward said, more calmly. "The spectacle of an unanesthetized death serves no purpose."

Another low rumble went through the crowd. I didn't know what Edward meant by "anesthetized," but it sounded like it wasn't too popular.

"This man has lied to us, young Edward," Aro said simply. "That you and I were both able to detect his deceit does not absolve him." He turned his head. "Felix?"

I had just a flash of Felix's smile before I shut my eyes tight, slammed both palms over my ears. Through my hands, I could hear someone shouting, echoing inside my skull, only the voice was high and female and reminded me of Alice. By the time I knew what was happening, four hands were dragging me backwards through the now-roiling forest of gray cloaks and I didn't even try to fight back. There were arms around me before I knew what they were. Someone was whispering, backing away and taking me with him. I let him lead. I didn't want to think. I wasn't sure I could at the moment.

"Don't watch," someone was murmuring. "Don't watch, Bella..."

The tearing sounds became muffled as the heavy doors swung shut behind us and I found myself kneeling on the stone floor of the hallway as the shaking in my arms and legs begin to ebb.

"Did they just—" the words wouldn't come out more than three at a time, like grains of sand clumping inside an hourglass. Time wouldn't move. "His arms and legs—"

"For Aro's safety," said a sad, velvet voice. "And then for when they burn him."

"That man!"

"Oleg. His name was Oleg."

Was?

I opened my eyes. Edward was crouched in front of me, holding both my upper arms. He was staring at me, but it wasn't the hollow spiritless look of the past few weeks. It was as if I could see down inside him again, and he was looking at me like I was something impossible, something out of a myth, as if he didn't quite understand how he could be seeing what he was seeing.

I looked back. I took a deep drink of him, not knowing how long I'd be thirsty afterward. He hadn't let me see him this way in a long time, not since before my birthday back in Forks. Only this time I knew better. It wouldn't last, so I would take all I could get while he was willing to give it.

A sound on my right distracted me. I turned my head to see Renata with one hand clasped tight over her mouth. Her shoulders were hitching forward over and over, making her tight curls shake. She looked as if she were choking on her own breath.

I finally realized that she was crying.

Was she sad? I knew I felt sorry for that poor man, but why should she?

"You can go if you need to, Renata," Edward said gently. "I think we'll be all right."

Renata shook her head but didn't say a word.

"Athenodora will want to hear about this," he prompted again. "You know how she is about the Romanians."

"Give me a minute," Renata spoke only the edges of the words with almost no breath inside, like a hermit crab's shed skin.

The screaming had stopped. I could smell smoke seeping through the cracks between the door and the walls. It was sweet and it stuck to the back of my throat like a bad memory.

Edward turned his attention back to me. He tugged gently on my arm as he started to get to his feet. "Come on," he said quietly. "You'll feel better if you move."

I didn't think there was anything that could make me feel better. I'd imagined that man's life in my mind, felt it like I'd had my finger on his pulse and now...

Edward kept his hand on my arm as we hurried through the reception area and into the hallways. I didn't know if we were going anywhere in particular, and I didn't really care. There was nowhere in the compound I wanted to be for even one more second.

"Does that... Does it happen all the time?" I asked.

Edward shook his head. "This was something special. Criminals are usually executed on the spot, not brought back to Volterra. And Caius... Caius doesn't usually play with his food first. At least not this way."

I shook my head. It didn't make sense. It didn't make sense.

"They'd already decided to execute him," Edward went on. "Aro just wanted to make sure he'd gotten the whole story first."

"Then..."

"Safety for one," said Edward. "Felix is very good at what he does, but even small vampires can do amazing things when they're cornered." I pictured Alice, remembered her jumping onto James's shoulders to tear his head from his body. I smiled without meaning to. "Most of the guard is very protective of the masters. I doubt they would have let Aro come near Oleg without disabling him first."

Something wasn't right. Something still didn't add up. My mind wasn't quick today. I felt like I was a swarm of grasshoppers all jumping in different directions. "If Aro was going to touch him anyway," I managed, "Then why do any of this at all?" I suddenly imagined Jasper in Oleg's place. In my imagination, Oleg's mate suddenly looked like Alice. "Why did he want you to say where Oleg's friends were?"

Edward didn't answer right away, tucking my hand into the crook of his arm as he steered us around a corner. "For one, Aro likes the guard to hear things for themselves, right from the traitor's mouth. He can tell them what he's seen in their thoughts, of course, but the less he has to do that, the less chance someone will come to doubt his word. He also wanted to see if I could do it," he said at last, finally looking me in the eye. "And..." he breathed in and out. Edward stopped walking, but he didn't let go of my arm. "This way, the next time they want to know something, they'll send me and not Jane."

Everything clicked into place. Somewhere, back in the part of my mind that wasn't sad and quivering, I could see the pieces fit together. Yes, Jane would be very persuasive, but whoever she questioned would probably end up saying whatever they thought would make her stop. Even Caius would be able to see that Edward would be a far more valuable interrogator.

I tried to picture him in the dark gray cloak, cold face expressing nothing. It was easy enough to make me shiver.

But that couldn't be why Edward was looking at me like that.

"He would have told them everything anyway," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "This way..." I felt his hand go tight on my arm as he turned to look me in the eye.

This way Oleg hadn't gone through being Jane's target. This way Oleg didn't have to say out loud where Lucia was. He didn't have to betray her. Edward couldn't save him, so he'd saved him some of his pain.

"I believe you," I said.

Edward looked away, but I felt his fingers flex around mine. When he looked back I could see something that hadn't been there before, or something he'd been hiding.

Edward wasn't who I'd thought he was. He wasn't an angel or a hero out of a story or a dream made flesh. He was someone else, someone who could be worn down until he was exhausted. I didn't really know him, so why did I still love him so much that I felt like I could drown?

"Why do you want me to say I'm your mate?" I asked, not realizing that the words were out of me until they were.

"It keeps you safe," he said simply. "Most of the men here..." He managed to look at me. I didn't know if he was too tired to be afraid or if he'd just realized that there wasn't anything he could say about vampires, any violence or shamefulness that he'd been trying to protect me from that could possibly be worse than what we'd just seen. "Even though most of the men here have worked with female vampires, they have a medieval attitude about women and..."

"And sex?" I asked, and Edward nodded. It made sense, somewhere. "No means no" was a modern idea. Renee had always warned me that some fathers still taught their boys that "no" really meant "maybe" and "maybe" meant "yes."

"If they think you already have a mate, they'll leave you alone," said Edward, "unless they're trying to take you away from me, but then they'll go for me first."

I took a minute to let that sink into me. I didn't want to have to know it, but now I did. "Do you think anyone's going to do that?" I asked.

"It's rare but it isn't unheard of," he said. "And you're very beautiful."

The words were like a spark going off inside me. I tried to push the smile back, but it wasn't working. He'd said I was beautiful, and it felt so good to hear him say it, but I had to ask my next question, and it was more important.

"When are we going home?" I said.

Edward looked away, finally letting go of my hand.

"When are we going home, Edward?" I asked again.

I saw his throat flex as he swallowed. "Bella..."

I knew what he was going to say. I knew before I'd asked, and now I was wishing I hadn't.

"Bella, I don't know."

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NOTE:  
I have kept Alice ripping James's head off as part of my personal canon. Because it's awesome. I read the Cleolinda material before the actual _Twilight_ books—they're what convinced me to give them a try, actually—and I was actually very disappointed when I got to the fight scene in the ballet studio and stupid Bella passed out before I could see Alice and Edward's not-brothers rip James into stalker-flavored bacon bits. It's nice when a film actually adds to a fandom instead of cheesing or diluting it. In this case, they fixed the pacing and added some much-needed action.

Speaking of which, thank you for your wonderful reviews, in which many of you helped me to realize that this story has one of the same problems as the original books: THERE MUST BE MORE VAMPIRING. I am planning some modifications to previous chapters in that respect and some more action in those to come.

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	19. Ch 18 Unprepared

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer.

July was a month for rewrites, and not just the many versions of this chapter that clog-danced their way through my poor brain. Chapters eleven and sixteen have undergone some moderately serious changes, especially sixteen. Namely, Felix does a little more than play tour guide while Edward interviews the help. In the next few days, I'll be going through twelve and thirteen to make sure the continuity matches.

If anyone can think of a better quote for this chapter, I'd be grateful. I can be contacted by PM.

EDIT: This chapter has been edited as of early August. I felt like I was pulling my punches with Felix. No more!

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"It's very pleasant when my ...enhanced abilities allow me to save someone who would otherwise have been lost." –Carlisle, _New Moon_

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The pre-dawn air still held a hint of spring, even through the pollution. At this time of night, the warehouse district was as close to empty as it would ever get. The nearest humans were blocks from here, thinking about the end of shift.

This building looked exactly like all the others, serviceable, run-down, not currently in use. The corrugated metal wall could have been any of a thousand such in any of a hundred cities. Although most sensible residents of the area would have avoided this place at this hour, it was, in its way, benign. Mundane. Not the least out of place.

The mental voices inside it, however, were nothing of the kind.

"Well?" asked a high male voice on my right, the crunchy gravel making no sound under his feet.

"They're all in there," I answered from beneath the drawn hood of my storm-gray cloak.

Alec smiled, a gleam of excitement coloring his usual languidness. He gave a sharp sideways jerk of his head and Felix leaped forward like a cannonade.

I registered a female scream as the warehouse door exploded inward in a kickup of rust and abused metal. Demetri and I were through the opening before the sound died away, Alec and Rolfe close behind.

I didn't hang back. I didn't flinch. I knew why we were here.

_My mate is lovely, my Lucia._

I went for the far side of the building. There was a female with light brown hair going for the opposite door, her panicked mind alive with thoughts of escape. Demetri had spotted her first, but I was faster.

_She put her arms around me that day, and I became a different man, a better man_.

I hit her from behind and got my arms around her, staying clear of her clawing fingers and watching her thoughts, cutting her off every time she tried to twist free.

_You must know what that feels like._

Demetri was at my side an instant later. With a practiced hand, he took hold of the female's right arm. He braced one hand against her shoulder and gave the socket joint a hard twist.

_Promise me, witch-boy of the Volturi. As you despise this man who commands you, as you love that creature by your side, promise me you will not hurt my Lucia._

The metallic wrenching and the vibrations from her screams carried through my chest into my spine. Her thoughts cut deeper still.

_No! No no no oh God!_ She twisted in my arms, but I held firm as Demetri went to work on her legs. There was another scream, deeper, coming from somewhere behind me. _Who are you?_ She tried to look over her shoulder to see what Felix and Rolfe were doing to the rest of her coven. _Oh my God. Miklos!_

Not a minute had passed since I'd breathed my report to Alec, and it was all over.

I set my jaw, willed my hands not to shake, willing ...willing the _fire_ inside me to die away. The woman's screams cut off abruptly as Demetri pulled her throat open. Her head lurched in my hands, suddenly free of excess weight. Her lips still moved, like a goldfish gulping air. They were forming a word, the same one, without any breath behind.

"He's dead," I whispered back. She stopped moving, and I found myself drawn to the eyes, dark red, helpless eyes. It wasn't the moment of her death, not yet, but her mind flashed with images from her life, most of them featuring a pale vampire man with straw-colored hair. He'd been like an angel in her eyes. He'd changed her life, given her a whole world.

I felt like there were a dozen anvils pressing down on my chest. It was that much like the way Esme thought of Carlisle. They'd spent hours together talking about books or the weather or walking along the river at night and that one time they'd come across a young college student who'd screamed _just_ like a—

I jerked my hands away and the woman's head hit the ground with a solid thunk. I shook my own, trying to wipe away the images of Oleg and Lucia sharing a kill, wipe my parents' faces off the memory. My stomach heaved and I leaned forward, palms to my knees, trying to regain my balance.

"Careful," Demetri said quietly. "She can still bite."

There were many types of battles, I knew now, and this was no show of strength, no public justice laid down on lawbreakers with witnesses to spread through words and whispers and keep the rest of our race in line. This time, the fist of the Volturi had come down swift and heavy, and the fewer witnesses, the better.

All of a sudden the vampire's twitching, disconnected hand went limp. I backed away carefully. I could overhear a chuckle behind me.

I looked over at Alec, who gave a smile that made my shoulder blades cringe together. It was tempting to think of Alec's gift as the other side of Jane's—taking away the pain—but there was no mercy in it. Alec wasn't Jane's opposite in any respect.

Like his sister's, Alec's human life had ended young. Turned before he could reach his full size and weight, and it looked like he'd never been big for his age. I got the impression that the companions of his youth had made sure he'd felt it. I could see the satisfaction that it brought him to leave larger vampires helpless. That smile left nothing to the imagination.

I turned toward the center of the room. The situation seemed secure. Demetri and I had taken out the female. Rolfe and Felix had taken poor Miklos half apart. He was pinned under the larger vampire's considerable mass.

"Careful," Alec warned mildly. "We do need to leave one of them intact enough to talk."

A lie. They only had to be intact enough to listen.

Alec fixed his dark red eyes on the vampire struggling under Felix's weight. He was short for a male, and he had light brown hair and a face that might have once been careworn. He'd made it to middle age or more as a human. "Do you know who I am?" asked Alec.

The vampire gave a grunt but did not answer. A flicker of annoyance crossed Alec's underdeveloped features as he remembered that Jane hadn't come with us on this little excursion. He was used to seeing his enemies convulsing with pain after every insult. His eyes crossed to mine for a moment. He didn't like that Aro was thinking of replacing his other half with me, if only partially.

"Felix," Alec said simply.

Miklos gave another shudder of pain as Felix ripped off the remaining chunk of his right arm.

"You're—" the vampire's jaw gaped, like a fish gulping air as it flopped on the pier. "You're Volturi."

"Yes," said Alec. "And there are some things that you are going to tell me. You may notice that we have not yet fully dispatched your friend," Alec said.

_But you will_, Miklos thought. _I told Oleg that it was a bad idea. Should have known better than to run with such a reckless pair_.

Keeping out of the prisoner's field of vision, I moved until I was directly in Alec's line of sight. He and I did not have anything like the rapport between Aro and Caius (to my great relief) so the code we'd worked out was simple. I was to shake my head if he lied, nod if he told the truth, and interrupt only if the line of questioning needed to change. Aro did not want our enemies knowing what I could do just yet, not even enemies who were sure to die.

"Who asked you to spy on us?" Alec asked.

"Nobody asked me to—"

There was another crunching sound. For the hundredth time that morning, I was glad I wasn't Jasper. I still had to watch as Miklos registered what was happening to his arms and legs.

It wasn't as bad as the woman. Miklos was going into denial. He didn't completely believe that we'd kill him before he put himself back together.

"Never saw him," he choked. "I never saw him."

In the part of me that wasn't completely disgusted, I knew that this was foolish. This whole charade was purposeless cruelty. Oleg had been the only member of this coven to have any direct contact with the Romanians. No one here would be able to tell us anything that Aro had not learned from Oleg's mind. There was nothing that could justify this—

I held up my hand, motioning for Alec to repeat his last question.

"Where did Oleg meet them?"

"I told you, I don't kno—aagh!" Miklos flinched as Felix tore at him, but it was too late. He hadn't been able to help thinking about it.

Oh...

Cruelty, yes. But purposeless...

Oleg had been the one to speak with the Romanian Stefan, but Miklos had kept his own counsel. Oleg and Lucia had joined Miklos's coven because of his knack for finding areas where food would be plentiful and for sensing when it was time to move on. There was no way to tell if he was talented like Jasper and me or just a hunter of uncommon skill.

The balance of human prey had shifted recently. Miklos had noticed. He'd assumed it was another group of nomads. He'd assumed that right up until Oleg had left on his crazy little mission and Lucia had said where he'd gone.

_He thinks there are other vampires nearby,_ I realized quietly.

I motioned to Alec.

_Go ahead_, he thought.

"Where is their safehouse?" I asked.

Miklos gave a lurch under Felix's weight, trying to see who was speaking. I could hear my own voice echoing in his mind. I sounded more intimidating than Alec, some mysterious new agent. "I don't know who you—"

"The Romanians," I clarified. "Where?"

_Damn it all. I don't know. But something is going on near the north bank of the Danube_.

"He thinks they have an outpost near the river."

_How the hell..._ Miklos thought in amazement.

"Budapest?" asked Alec. _We drove them out of this area well before the war,_ Alec mused. _If they're trying to crawl back in..._ Alec refocused his thoughts on me. _Anything else?_

That was it, wasn't it? The moment I said no, Alec would give Felix the go-ahead that we were fished here, and two people who were not my enemies would die.

And another, less compassionate part of me knew that I couldn't really know if Miklos had no other valuable information. I wasn't Aro.

In the end, I shook my head. Alec reached into his cloak and pulled out a simple Butane lighter.

"Wha-what?" Miklos shouted in surprise.

Alec shook his head without looking up. "Felix?"

I didn't watch. I couldn't close my ears or my mind, but I didn't have to watch.

"Alec," I said. The protest in my voice was unmistakable. Five sets of eyes turned toward me, all staring. I cursed myself, but there was no use going back now. "He didn't want to," I said. "He's cooperated."

_There's no way we can let him live, not to tell others what happened here today_, Alec thought.

Too late. And not only for Oleg's coven.

"Felix," Alec said.

_Oh damn_. It was the only thing I had time to think before Felix had me spread-eagled on the ground, one arm wrenched behind my back in a grip like an earthquake. His thundering, eldritch growl went through my bones, my skin, my eyes my heart and it was all too much for me, just _too much_.

_Yes, yes, I'll do what you say. You win. You win_. I tried to shake it off, but I knew I wouldn't last long.

"Listen to me, Edward Cullen," Alec's voice came through the growling fog like a curse. "You do not contradict us."

Felix gave another snarl, grabbing my hair to jerk my head back. There were teeth like razors at my throat. A kill shot.

"If your opinion is wanted, I will ask for it." That voice, that growl. I screwed my eyes shut. _I am not like this. I am not like this._ "You obey and you do not falter."

Unity. The Volturi's implacable unity. It was the true source of their power.

"You _do not question us in front of our enemies_." Alec spoke. Felix sent that growl all through me, but they were the same man.

_I am not like this_. I would fight it because I _was not like this_.

"_Do you understand?_" Alec's high snarl mixed with Felix's and went straight to a part of my brain that I wished to God, hell and the foundations of the earth was not there.

"He understands," Felix rumbled. I could hear the satisfaction in his voice. He'd earned the right to speak for me.

_Never_, I thought.

"Yes!" I gasped.

And then it was gone. I staggered to my feet, looking around.

It was like the world had changed while I'd been on the ground. It was like it had all been a dream, like it hadn't really happened. Except Alec was scowling and Felix was smirking, and Rolfe looked like he'd have rather been anywhere else. Someone had finished working on Miklos while I'd been down. Probably Demetri. I fought the urge to touch my neck, wipe it clean of venom with my fingers.

"You do not question, not in the field," Alec said, as if this was the only thing he'd ever meant to do, "not in front of our enemies."

I nodded, clenching my fingers so that they would not shake.

We piled the pieces by the north wall, near the electrical circuits, removed all signs of habitation from the building. To the human authorities, this would be nothing more sinister than a warehouse fire, arson at the absolute worst. There would be no bones and no evidence.

"They were ready for us," I muttered to no one in particular. Felix smirked, remembering that Miklos had not seemed all that ready to him. "Or at least they knew we might come for them soon," I amended.

_That means they all condoned Oleg's plan_, Demetri concluded with cold satisfaction. That made this a whole coven of traitors.

"Will we investigate this safehouse rumor?" Rolfe asked Alec, not particularly stressing the word "rumor."

"No," Alec answered. "We'll report back to Caius and return with sufficient numbers. We only planned for two enemies today," he said. _Though if my sister were here, we could have handled as many as we pleased._ He had a memory now, some rogue coven in France, Jane sending each vampire to the ground, over and over, giving Alec time to do his own work upon them. "Unless, of course, there were some way to know for sure what we were dealing with..." he trailed off, eyes lingering on mine.

I shook my head.

Alec shrugged. "There is a train waiting for us, gentlemen," he said simply.

I fell into step behind the others. I did wish to return to Volterra, but not to give my report. Even with the Volturi's best tracker here to look over my shoulder, the temptation to attempt escape was there, and Aro knew that. He knew me. He had taken no chances.

And his thoughts in the feasting hall the day of Oleg's execution had been clear ...and far more vivid than I would have liked.

_These people are a danger to our way of life, Edward, to every vampire who lives discreetly, including my friend Carlisle,_ he'd told me as Felix had had his way with Oleg's left arm. It was the truth, in a way. The Romanians had never shown quite the same dedication to secrecy that the Voltrui had. However, they hadn't been in power since the early Renaissance, when superstition and limited technology had given supernatural creatures more leeway. And it wasn't as if our sort of warfare gave anyone time to come out with a political platform. _I am not used to having to negotiate with my own guard_.

He hadn't explicitly threatened Bella, not on the surface of his thoughts. It was there underneath, in that place where we all kept knowledge about the weather and the turn of the seasons and how to keep a shoelace tied. If I did not do my utmost duty and then return, the newborn Bella would die as had Oleg died. It was a fact of the universe.

She'd been standing at my side at that moment, fingers barely touching me, like a breeze from some hidden window.

After resisting my human Bella's blood, the scent of free air was at best a mild intoxicant. And there was Demetri, keeping me on the straight and narrow.

The train station was far from deserted, even at this hour, but Rolfe had a knack for this. We were in a freight car bound for Italy before anyone noticed or questioned our presence.

As we settled in to wait, I noticed that Rolfe was staring at me. I glared back but he didn't stop.

"Will you just say it out loud?" I asked impatiently.

"But you can already tell what I want to ask, can't you?" he said, eyes bright beneath his bristly dark brows.

I closed my eyes. His tone was playful, but I was in no mood to make friends, not today.

_If I had a gift, I wouldn't hog all the fun..._ he thought peevishly.

" 'Fun' isn't what I would have called it," I told him. "Might be hard to believe, but hearing someone's thoughts after their head's been ripped off is actually a bit unpleasant."

And they'd kept going right up until we'd put her out of her misery. I wondered at that. A few minutes of pain and degradation versus utter and irreversible oblivion. Which would I choose when my time came? At least there would be no hell for me. It would all just be over.

"What was she thinking?" said Rolfe, his red eyes bright beneath his short dark hair.

"What you'd expect, mostly," I obfuscated. I didn't have enough fight left in me for anything else. " 'Oh God. Oh God. Why are you doing this?' And she was sad about her mate."

Of course, she'd also been thinking about ripping apart some terrified co-ed as part of a romantic evening... I hadn't eaten in over a week, and I still had to hold my gorge down.

_No_, I told myself firmly_._ _No justifications._ My days playing God were long done. My new role was lieutenant devil.

_So it's not just humans he doesn't like to kill,_ Rolfe thought, misinterpreting my disgust._ Got to give him that. Squeamish across the board, this one. Oh shit, he's probably listening to my thoughts right now. LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA..._

I shook my head. "How long to you think it will take for us to get back?" Demetri asked Alec.

"We'll be home in two days," he said, taking the none-too-subtle hints that he'd wanted to change the subject.

It was not an easy trip. The journey outward had been ...well, it had been almost educational. If I hadn't been a prisoner being forced into committing terrible sins and if my newborn had not been held hostage against my good behavior, I might have been fascinated, learning the methods of the Volturi guard. Demetri, Rolfe and Alec had been focused on the task ahead, and even Felix had preferred imagining the brutal task ahead of us to anything he could have done to me. But now the thrill of Miklos's death was wearing off. I watched with apprehension as his thoughts turned to me again. I reassured myself that he could hardly slam my head against the walls of the train without attracting attention. And he didn't have Alec's endorsement this time.

As humiliated as I felt, I had to admit there was a sick logic to it. The Volturi simply could not afford to have any dissent in their ranks, not even gentle dissent. The only thing that frightened my kind was their eerie ability to act so very much against our nature. And creating unity in monsters took even more monstrous behavior.

We were not wolves. We did not have instincts that pushed us to submit to higher ranking individuals. Any pack instincts I had came from my human lifetime. Most vampires had never needed substitutes for combat. What did a stronger vampire lose if a weaker one was injured? It wasn't as if he needed him. The only fighting instincts we had went to self-preservation.

The Volturi, however, had developed traditions to compensate for this.

I'd hoped that Felix would be content with reliving my submission, but I had rotten luck. He got _creative_.

He set the first one in the library, the big one. I watched his narrowing eyes from the corner of my own and had to keep from jumping across the train car to wring his neck. I was able to stop the motion, but not before he saw my hands clench.

_Didn't like that, did you?_ Felix chuckled silently. _Well what do you expect when you leave a female all by herself? Especially a little torch like that._

I settled down, trying to force out Felix's very visual imaginings of my newborn Bella ...with men. I could stare straight ahead, but every twitch of my lip, every move of my lower eyelids rewarded him. Felix didn't have a true mate, but he had enough experience to make things ...visceral.

It was only that he was impugning a lady's honor. I had no right to her, for all that I was her protector. It was only...

She _reminded_ me.

I had been an asexual being once. Well, not asexual, but not tormented by bodily desire. I'd appreciated beauty. I'd understood more of Emmett's jokes than I'd ever admitted out loud, but I hadn't been _driven_.

That had changed when I'd met her. Why not? Everything else had changed, so why not this part of my being? A year in Bella's company had taught my body to hope for ...i_something_./i Joy, I supposed, satisfaction, release, whatever the right word was. I'd been trying not to think too hard about it. Though my mind had been resolved never to risk her life by indulging myself, I had never convinced the rest of me that it wasn't going to happen.

_You do know the way she was looking at Randall, don't you? I'll bet it'd be him first. He'd wear her out, though._

My right fist flexed against my leg. Felix laughed to himself, just as if I'd jumped to my feet and challenged him to an old-style duel. Rolfe was staring. Demetri just shook his head.

I was going to go insane if I didn't find some way to block that damned man. I closed my eyes and saw Lucia's disembodied face staring back at me, felt her skin under my fingers. I ended up conjugating Russian verbs. By the time we reached Italy, I could have rewritten _Crime and Punishment_ without missing a note.

Randall was waiting with a car and we spent a tense few hours in the nighttime traffic. I had to fight to keep from gritting my teeth with frustration. Did he _have_ to follow the goddamned speed limit? I came close to volunteering my services as a RADAR detector, but I had a nagging feeling that I'd already made myself too useful on this trip.

We arrived in Volterra well before dawn, to my slight annoyance. I had been hoping to get a chance to study the shadow-paths in and out of the city. Part of my mind was free to wonder whether our mission had been scheduled that way deliberately or if it was just my bad luck. I felt the city walls settle down around me like a vise.

Most of my mind was elsewhere anyway. I'd been gone nearly a week. Caius hadn't had any specific plans to sabotage her, but that could have changed at any time. Surely Heidi was well into gathering her next catch by now. The closer we got, the more worried I felt. I literally _ached_ to know she was all right. And... And I wanted to know that _I_ was all right. It was as if she could tell me, as if I wouldn't know until I saw her.

We moved through reception without stopping. Gianna greeted us simply, probably used to this. I watched her take note of the tears in Felix's cloak and sleeves. She didn't ask questions.

The hallway leading to the feasting chamber opened up around us, and I realized with a twinge that I'd been expecting to see her waiting for me. I hardly deserved a hero's homecoming, but after the talk we'd had before Aro had sent me away, I'd thought—

My feet stopped.

I listened again, hardly able to keep my composure at the feeling bubbling up inside me like water from a spring, quiet but unstoppable. Yes, yes I really had heard it. I shook my head. I was not prepared for this. I should have expected it, long before now, but I was _not ready_.

"Get a move on," snarled Felix. Alec rolled his eyes.

"Felix, he hears something," Demetri pointed out without inflection. _Is it an enemy?_ he wondered. _Is the compound in danger?_

"Nothing like that, Demetri," I said, finding my feet again. "No danger."

"Then what?" asked Alec, his small face impatient.

"A visitor," I said.

"A visitor?" Alec asked.

I nodded. "Just an old friend of the Master's," I said, walking past him toward the audience chamber. My voice sounded hollow, even to my own ears. I wasn't sure that I wouldn't fall right off my feet. For the first time in weeks, hope was buzzing up inside me.

Carlisle was here.

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NOTE: One of the things that makes this 'fic harder to write than my previous long projects is that I don't really have a _Twilight_ community. I'm used to being able to bounce chapters off a forum full of other fanwriters before showing it to the public, asking people what quote to use, how to bring out the effects I want...

krisbatt—_Okay_, JEEZ!

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	20. Ch 19 Carlisle

This story is a fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way.

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"I'd thought Aro was exaggerating." –Jane, _Eclipse_

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He'd been kept waiting. He'd come yesterday and the day before asking to speak with Aro and been turned away both times. He was expecting to be turned away again. Now he was being kept waiting while Alec made his report to Aro. I could practically feel the sun rising higher in the sky. Had Carlisle learned about the shadow-paths through the city during his own time here? No, by now too many buildings had been torn down and replaced. Even if such paths had existed in his day, they wouldn't have followed the same routes.

Aro wasn't taking any chances today.

Renata walked in, and my heart jumped into my throat until I realized she was alone. Carlisle would want to see her. Carlisle would want to _see_ her. Renata took her place behind Aro with a practiced steadiness. In her impeccable dark gray cloak, she could seem almost imposing to anyone who didn't look straight at her. I felt my jaw clench. My father hadn't come here to fight. Renata's presence was a useless display, and she didn't even realize it.

"_Where?_" I mouthed, but Renata's only answer was a half-nervous smile that matched her half-nervous thought about being seen participating in my breach of etiquette. The guard was supposed to appear stoic and unified in front of outsiders.

_Come on,_ I thought. _Where is she?_ For all that I could go a thousand years without having Caius and Bella in the same room again, I had to know. But Renata's thoughts were no help. I thought I caught an image of her handing Bella off to Heidi, but I couldn't be sure if it had happened today. I quickly searched the area for Heidi's thoughts and found nothing. I tried again, listening hard for the mental voice that lured humans into the Volturi's feasts. Nothing.

I met Aro's eyes and he smiled.

...Bella was alone, then. She would have to be alone. Yes, I realized as I watched Aro turn to speak quietly to Demetri, the only way to keep Bella hidden from me without removing her from the compound was to put her away somewhere and then send her escort out of my range. He could have told Heidi to take Bella to a place of her choosing and then spend the day somewhere else. I wondered if she'd had time to get out of the city by dawn or if she was stuck ruining her pedicure somewhere in the tunnels.

Unless... Unless Bella _had_ been sent away. There would have been plenty of time while I'd been gone to bring her to some other set of buildings, or even smuggle her out of Volterra entirely. Caius had said that he thought it was too dangerous to keep a newborn in the city. The thought made me strangely cold.

"Master," I said, as calmly as I could manage. The old man met my eyes with a smug indulgence. "I believe that Bella would like to see my father when he arrives," I said plainly. "She's very fond of him."

Aro smiled back, only his eyes showing that he'd understood the real iron in my request. "As impressed as I am with our little Bella, I am not entirely certain that she would be no danger to my friend Carlisle," he told me. "I am sure she would be happier to wait for his next visit than to be the cause of any harm to him." And the crowd heard him give a perfectly plausible response to my innocent request. None of them could see the greed in his thoughts, the desire to win and keep treasures away from his _friend_.

Perhaps he thought that Carlisle would act rashly if he could visualize taking the two of us and making a run for it. No, that was foolish. Carlisle never acted rashly. It would be me he was worried about.

I was worried enough about myself. I had no idea what Carlisle was doing here. I couldn't think of a single thing that he could say or do that would result in Aro willingly relinquishing my services to someone else. And yet I couldn't stop _hoping_.

"Edward," Aro said quietly, motioning to me with one hand. I dutifully took my place at his left. He reached out and carefully positioned his hand on my shoulder, as if he really were an old man who needed the support.

I found Carlisle's thoughts, as clear and familiar to my mind as the rare sunlight at our house in Alaska, and Aro was fascinated. Aro had touched Carlisle at least once, I was sure, but that would have been long ago. Did he suppose that I would be able to predict his actions more readily that he could?

He was watching the door, waiting for it to open. He was remembering the time he'd spent in Volterra, long before he'd had a family of his own to worry about. I wanted to be back with them all so much that it should have split me open.

The doors swung open, except this time I was on the inside, watching the visitor enter. I was one of the Volturi guard, waiting for the yellow-eyed, unpredictable vampire who somehow managed to hold my master's interest.

And Carlisle walked in. Just like that. I would have thought that the air around us would have to crack first.

I could finally understand how Bella could compare me to an angel. Seeing Carlisle walk toward us was like watching my own salvation moving through the shafts of sunlight toward where Aro stood with his bodyguards and me.

I'd known it would be bad, but nothing could have made me ready to see my own reflection in Carlisle's thoughts. I was at Aro's left hand, wearing the gray cloak of a Volturi newcomer, looking for all the world as if I belonged here.

He didn't search the rest of the room. He was not surprised at Bella's absence.

That was why he had waited this long instead of coming for us right away, I realized with a chill in my spine. He didn't know that Bella wasn't a typical newborn. He'd needed to be sure that she would be stable enough to travel. Were Emmett and Jasper waiting in a hotel? I searched his thoughts. Emmett and Rosalie. Yes, Alice would have told him not to bring Jasper. He would be no closer than Heathrow.

...but Alice hadn't told them not to come at all, I realized with a lightening sensation in the pit of my stomach. That meant that Aro hadn't decided against saying yes.

"Welcome!" Aro called out in his smooth voice, just like he'd greeted me the day I'd first arrived in Volterra. Except this time he only raised one hand. The other stayed on me.

"Welcome back, friend Carlisle," echoed Caius.

Aro smiled benevolently, "I trust your mate and followers are doing well."

Carlisle's eyes landed on my face and he smiled.

"Thank you, Aro. We are all very well, although my son gave us all quite a scare a few weeks ago." His thoughts were focused on what he could see and hear, and what he'd planned ahead to say. Good. If he was hiding something, I'd be less likely to hear it and betray it to Aro. Carlisle's eyes turned toward me. _Are you all right, Edward?_ he thought deliberately.

He knew I wasn't. He could see it in my eyes and on my face. But he'd asked. I tilted my head forward, just slightly, our family code for _"Yes."_

_And Bella, Edward?_ asked my father. _Have they killed her?_

In a movement that would have been invisible to anyone who didn't know what to look for, I moved my head to the side.

_Turned?_

I raised my chin, just barely. Carlisle's thoughts turned to relief. Turned was better than dead to his mind.

_And to yours as well, my boy_, Aro half-scolded as he watched the exchange between Carlisle and me. They were our signals, our family's code for use in public. Aro noted each one with interest, pleased to see them in action again.

"Yes, young Edward can be a bit of a handful," Aro said in the indulgent tone that he reserved for gifted members of the guard, "but his other virtues make up for that, don't you think?"

The mood in the crowd was mixed. I eyed it carefully, like a rising tide. On the one hand, it had become clear almost immediately that Carlisle was not going to start anything, at least not anything physical. At the same time, though, both men's wishes were screamingly apparent through their polite words. Carlisle wanted one thing and Aro just the opposite.

"I understand that Edward has been the cause of some unease," Carlisle went on. He was choosing his words with great care.

"Nothing that could not be put right," Aro answered. "I am pleased to tell you that Edward took full responsibility for his actions." I could feel the smile in his voice. "My other dear ones tell me that he has already become a credit to our little family."

Carlisle's eyes flicked toward me and then back to Aro. _Edward..._ I could suddenly see images of my face superimposed over battles, executions that Carlisle had witnessed during his time here. I was glad I wasn't Jasper. I didn't want to know what he was feeling. My imagination was bad enough.

_It won't work_, I thought, knowing he would hear me. _There is nothing you can say that would keep him from wanting me back._

_No?_ Aro asked with amusement.

"I must admit, Aro, I became concerned when we had no word from Edward following his visit here," said Carlisle.

"Well that was thoughtless of him," Aro said with the same amused indulgence. "I should have reminded Edward to tell you of his new position. I am sure you would have wished to congratulate him." I managed not to glare. Aro's wishes for my conduct had been quite clear, and writing home hadn't been part of the picture.

Carlisle's smile didn't falter. "May we speak in private, old friend?"

In the shadows, Renata shifted nervously. Aro's benign smile did not change. On his own, he could have guessed what Carlisle was doing, but with me, he knew for sure. I relayed my father's thoughts without complaint. Carlisle wanted to speak plainly without requiring Aro to save face in front of the guard.

"I keep no secrets from my dear ones, friend Carlisle, as you well remember."

And with me around, they could keep no secrets from him. Most of the guard had guessed why Carlisle had come.

_Take him off our hands. We don't need him here. And don't tell me Felix needed a new toy that badly._

_Swear I was covered in pig shit. I'd step into a bonfire if I thought it'd be a permanent thing._

_Wouldn't mind if he went, so long as he didn't take that pretty young thing with him._ I shot this one a look. It was the round-faced man again.

_The boy..._ There were more images than words to this one, and they clear, terribly clear. I turned to look at Demetri, noting that Aro did the same, but he was staring straight ahead, lost in his own wordless analysis of the past five days.

I'd been useful, he determined. Damn it all...

Carlisle's eyes went from Aro's face to his hand on my shoulder and back. His next thoughts were deliberate.

_You and I both know that my son is not here of his own free will._

Aro's thoughts flickered to my arrival in Volterra, my impassioned request, my nearly successful attempt to violate the law. I had indeed come here of my own free will, for all that I had not meant to stay long.

...but Aro couldn't say so without admitting that Carlisle had asked the question. I held back a smile. Carlisle had used that trick against me many times.

Aro's mind filled with images of me beneath the clock tower, about to break the law, standing before him with Bella in my arms, law already broken. I was a criminal, and this was my punishment, a commuted sentence. Instead of the pyre I was being given a privilege, an opportunity to make our entire world safer. Carlisle should have been grateful.

_He cannot hear you,_ I reminded him.

_That's all right, young Edward,_ Aro thought with a smile. _I suspect that he does not need to_.

Carlisle's eyes were fixed on Aro now, hard as stones but still so calm, utterly without surprise.

Sinkingly, I realized what Aro must have known from the start: This was a gesture. Carlisle knew that his chances of returning home with Bella or me were all but nonexistent. Carlisle wasn't here to bargain for our freedom. He had nothing to offer and no leverage. All he could do was play on the thin veil of friendship that he'd forged with the Volturi long ago. He had to try because he had to try, but the primary purpose of this visit was to see me with his own eyes, so that he could go back and tell Esme and Alice that I was all right.

What had I ever done to deserve Carlisle? Why did I continually fail him?

"Coming all this way to see to your first-turned son's well-being when a simple message would have done the job. Your courtesy is undiminished from when I knew you, Carlisle."

"You still know me, Aro," Carlisle assured him. But he did not offer Aro his hand. I wondered what he was hiding.

_What do you think it is, Edward?_ Aro asked, and I answered him in the silence of my mind, without ever meaning to. My sister, my Alice, home and safe.

_Yes... Yes, he wouldn't wish to aggravate me,_ Aro thought with that same raging undercurrent. _Not that he should be one to talk._ Here, Aro pictured Carlisle with me by his side, hunting secrets, warning him when the family needed to move on, handling negotiations...

_That is not why, _I insisted_. He would have done the same if it were Emmett or Rosalie._

_I suppose you are right,_ Aro remarked with a long memory as Carlisle as a younger vampire. _We do become attached to the ones we turn personally, don't we?_

"To tell the truth, I would also dearly like to hear any news of Bella Swan. We all grew to enjoy her company when we lived in Washington," Carlisle's words were all but perfect. All of it was true, but those exact words could have just as easily been used to describe a pet or an amusement. Carlisle spoke nothing but the truth, and he appeared far, far less deviant than I did.

It all came together: Carlisle had considered the possibility of taking _her_ and returning to Forks or Ithaca. My mind raced. Bella had never agreed to join the guard. Bella was free to leave.

"Bella is newborn to the Volturi," Caius said smoothly, "turned by one of our guard."

Carlisle's eyes flicked to me. _But I thought it was Edward who turned her..._

My eyes slid shut. I didn't need to see the smug expression on Caius's face. His thoughts were bad enough.

It was true. Yes, it was possible to consider my turning Bella to be part of a bargain and not my first official act as a member of the guard, but I had addressed Caius and Aro as my masters just before doing it. The whole coven had heard me. And, I now realized, Caius had made sure of it.

I could hear the of satisfaction in Caius's thoughts, rasping like sandpaper against my mind. It wasn't every day that he got to outmaneuver a psychic. Then he wondered how hard it would be when Alice came.

"I did," I said out loud.

Carlisle watched me carefully for a long moment. Through me, Aro could see the wheels turning in his head. "And has Bella... made any vow to the Volturi herself?" he asked.

Aro had his answer ready.

_Don't say it,_ I insisted.

_Oh, and why not?_ he asked, more intrigued than indignant.

_If you don't say out loud that Bella is one of the Volturi, then you leave your options open. You still don't know if she'll turn out the way you hope she will_, I reminded him. _Carlisle will want her whether she has a gift or not; it's all the same to him_, I thought, even managing not to sound smug about it. _Say something noncommittal for now. You can make a present of her to him later, preserve your friendship. You may need to one day._

_Ah..._ Aro responded. _And do you want me to send our dear Bella to Carlisle's coven? Is that your wish?_

The idea was like a fist clenched around my stomach, twisting my insides.

It was ...strange. Not the thought of giving her to Carlisle, but the thought of her walking away. I should have wanted it. After all, I wanted her safe. I wanted her pure. I wanted her away from the danger and corrupting influence of the court at Volterra. I _should_ have answered with no hesitation.

_It is_, I thought. But if I'd had to answer out loud, if I'd had to move so much as a finger, could I still have done it?

_An interesting proposal_, Aro replied. Behind his surface thoughts, his mind was calculating. Why not do as I suggested? There was some risk that Bella might somehow run away on her own, and then there was the uncomfortable prospect of Carlisle's coven gaining a strong new vampire, even if she was not gifted in the traditional sense. Still, what I'd said was true; he could always change his mind later. _Well then,_ he went on, _what do you suggest? You're the one who can read a crowd_, he finished, just a touch of indignation coloring his words.

I swallowed the bitterness in my throat and told him what to say. It was something I'd done for years, feeding other people their cues as we saw how our classmates and neighbors and coworkers all reacted.

"Not in so many words," said Aro, finally answering Carlisle's question. The phrase was a bit more modern than his usual speech patterns, but it had the exact result we wanted. "You understand, her attention was needed in other areas." Half the crowd took the message one way and half the other, enough to cause just the right amount of confusion when Aro decided which meaning he wanted to make real. Aro raised an eyebrow at the response but said nothing of it. "But it is good to see you again, old friend. Perhaps we will speak again before you leave." And the audience was over. A deaf man would have known it.

"May I have a moment with my son?" asked Carlisle.

"Of course," said Aro, lifting both hands. The movement was so fluid that hardly anyone noticed that he'd released my shoulder. "Edward, I am sure you would like to speak with your father. You may see him to the vestibule.

Aro released my shoulder and I walked toward Carlisle. I did not look back.

_Demetri is here_, Aro reminded me. _I'm right to think that I won't need to send him after you, aren't I?_

"Yes, Master Aro," I promised, and the crowd heard nothing but me agreeing to perform a simple chore. His finger twitched. He wanted me to trust him. That meant taking a risk in trusting me. He could very easily have put his hand on mine, casual as you please, and confirmed that I was telling the truth, but he wanted to show me that he was no tyrant.

I stepped away.

We walked out into the hallway and the wide doors swung shut behind us.

"Carlisle, I—"

I lost the rest of my words as he pulled me into an embrace. For a second, my arms hung uselessly at my sides.

"_Never_ do that to us again, do you understand?" Carlisle's voice had an edge, an alien harshness. He had never been so angry with me, not even the day I'd left him to chase the my delusions of justice. But it did not need explanation. I nodded. He looked down at my pale gray cloak. "I never would have thought it, Edward. The Volturi guard."

Was he ...relieved?

_This is better by far than if he'd decided to oblige you, son_, Carlisle thought clearly, and for him it was no contest. He remembered the Volturi's brutality, and he was alive with worry for what this life would do to me—a relapse to my rebellious ways was not far from his mind—but he also remembered other things. He had spent many years here, not as Aro's servant but as his guest.

_These people are not without their virtues, Edward. They love art and science. They are committed, in their way, to a better world. Try to learn what you can from them._

Why did his thoughts make my eyes prick like they could still shed tears?

_He may have a change of heart one day. We both know he let Eleazar leave. Until then, make the best of it, son._

"Alice told me that under no circumstances was I to leave you here alone," he said.

Something formed in the base of my throat, something that reminded me of what it was like to feel sickness.

"I told her," Carlisle went on, "that I would not leave Bella behind in Volterra if I could help it, that keeping her here for your own well-being would not be what _you_ would want."

I nodded. "You're right," I told him. "Is Esme angry?" _Is Mother angry?_

"Very," Carlisle said, with a hardness that sounded quite alien in his voice.

"Tell her I'm sorry," I said uselessly.

"She knows," he answered. "Mostly she's angry that you would want to leave us—"

"I didn't want to—"

"I mean the reason you came to Italy in the first place."

"Oh," I said lamely. Yes... Yes, that was my own fault.

"Oh," Carlisle repeated. _Rosalie is beside herself,_ he thought, and I could see my proud sister wringing her hands and she waited with Emmett, her beautiful gold hair in disarray.

"It was not her fault," I said. "Tell her that I know she didn't mean anything by it." It was a lie, but Rosalie would know what I truly meant. Carlisle nodded. This was what he'd been sent to gather. My words to my family. He would bring them back like treasures.

"They want you to leave," I told him. "The sooner the better. You and the others should get out of Volterra no later than twilight."

"Are we in danger?" he asked. "We" meant Rosalie, Emmett and himself. I would have to get used to that.

"Not yet," I said. "Not while you play the obedient subject," I couldn't help a sneer.

Carlisle regarded my expression for a moment. _I cannot believe that Aro would need to coerce someone into joining him._

"That's what happened," I insisted.

_I don't mean that I don't believe you, Edward. I'm only surprised. He could have had almost any vampire on the planet, and eagerly._

"Well he wanted one that he couldn't have." I closed my eyes. How much had Alice told him about that day? "It was do as they said or..." My heart wrenched. "Or they would kill her. For what I told her about us."

He gently squeezed my shoulder. "And Bella?" he asked. "Edward, tell me what has happened."

"She's—" Gone. Dead. A mystery. A murderess. A victim. All the words stuck in my throat like the spines of some poisoned plant.

I shook my head. "I don't know what to do," I said at last.

Carlisle smiled, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Neither did I the first time," he admitted, though I remembered it well. "In a way, it was no easier the second time. With you at least, I had a clear role. Being both mentor and husband to another vampire can make things very complicated. Of course, I didn't know at the time that Esme would become my wife."

I blinked. "She's not—"

_And she wasn't one of these modern girls. It wasn't long before Esme's time that women were supposed to think of their husbands as superiors. Bella will have a harder time of it, having Edward as her husband and her teacher all at once._

"I'm not her husband," I told him.

_Edward, we both know why you came to Volterra._

"In my day," he said, "in much of Europe, if a man and a woman lived together for three years, calling themselves husband and wife, then the law would honor it. Of course, I do not know if this was ever the custom in Italy."

"Carlisle—" I stopped. "It isn't like that."

_Why not?_ He wouldn't have said it out loud, but it was still shocking. My newborn and me as... I felt my shoulder blades twitch. For some reason, I remembered her fingers slipping through her hair as she combed it. It hadn't even occurred to me to turn my head.

_Edward,_ _I know you are particular about these things, and of course you should give Bella time to adjust to her new existence, but it isn't as if Aro is going to let you two run off to Las Vegas or Gretna Green. For both your well-being, you must consider foregoing an actual ceremony before you start your lives together. Most of our kind do, and they feel no worse for it._

As tried to order my thoughts, my father's face turned sober. _...she didn't say no, did she?_ he asked.

"What?"

_It's your own fault, you know. You did not leave Forks under the best of circumstances. It's perfectly understandable for her to be angry with you, and you must accept that before you try win back her love. How did she react when you told her the real reason we left Washington?_

"I never—" I lowered my voice. "As far as the Volturi are concerned, she is mine, but it is for her safety. She has agreed to that much."

"Things between you are more complicated than I expected, then."

_Good._ These thoughts were not meant for me, but I heard them anyway. _It will take his mind off things, do him good to put something right. Let him focus on Bella and not on Aro. It might even keep him intact._

_Edward, regaining Bella's regard may be difficult. We become frozen when we are turned. In some respects, whatever she felt for you at the moment of her change may have become fixed in her character. But she cared enough to risk herself by coming here, so—_

"Carlisle!" I interrupted.

It made no sense. Carlisle was thinking of Bella as if... As if she were still the girl I'd known in Forks, as if it were a certainty. But if he could see her, if he knew what I knew, would it change his mind?

I looked over my shoulder, back to the audience chamber. Aro was talking with Caius over something that one of the readers had found. They wouldn't send for me for at least a few minutes.

I had to find a way to ask Carlisle what he thought of all this, have one of our talks like we used to. This was what I'd truly needed. This was why I'd been so off course. He would know. And if he didn't he could tell me enough to help me work out the rest on my own.

"Carlisle," I said in a more level tone. "Can a newborn be..." my throat closed. Damn it all. "Is it possible..."

_What are you thinking? Did something go wrong with the change?_ He paused, searching my face. I could only stare back. If I could shed tears, my eyes would have been full of them.

_Was it not you who turned her? Edward, that should make no difference._

I shook my head.

_Is she ...damaged? I've heard of turnings gone wrong, but I've never seen one. I am not sure they aren't myths._

I shook my head again.

How could I tell him what I'd seen, what she'd admitted to me? Even now, it filled me with shame, anger and worse.

"Carlisle," each sound felt like glue on my tongue. "Are we ...the same?"

"Are we the same?" he repeated.

I nodded.

"Her soul," I whispered, and that one sound seemed to take all the life from me.

"Edward..." Carlisle said sympathetically. I shook my head, stepping back. "Edward, I know what you believe about what happens to our spirits when we are changed, but there is nothing you can do about that now."

True. I would never have thought of it that way on my own, but it was true. Nothing I could do about it. There was no sense wishing I could go back in time.

"What went wrong, Edward?" he asked gently.

_Edward would not have forgiven himself if he did Bella any lasting harm. That would explain why he is acting so strangely._ And this was just as true.

The words felt like lead weights in my mouth. I didn't want to tell Carlisle what Bella had confessed to me in her cell. I didn't want to know it myself.

Carlisle closed his eyes when I finished. "That poor girl," he said. "And that poor human. But you see, from the Volturi's standpoint, they were doing Bella a kindness. The thirst is undeniable in those first hours, and most of the vampires here believe that animal blood causes problems."

I had to hold back a snarl. "That's not—" I stopped my tongue. Could I tell Carlisle out loud that Caius had done it on purpose? Was anyone spying on us?

"They did not understand, Edward." _Forgive them_. "And it was not her fault," he said firmly.

"I know," I said.

"But you don't believe it. Repeat it to yourself out loud if you have to."

_Not her fault_, I thought. It didn't feel right in my head.

"No matter what she's done, she is still your Bella, and she needs you."

And this was the meat of it. "Is she?" I asked. "Carlisle, are any of us who we were before? Alice can't even remember and Esme barely does."

_Where is this coming from?_

I couldn't look at him.

_Son, that is very wrong. It is one thing for us to talk about hypothetical matters. Bella needs you._

"One way or another?" I asked.

"Rosalie believes she is the same person that she always was," he said firmly. "And my own human memories have faded, but I know that I would not have made the decisions that I did in my first days if not for the education and values of my human life.

"Think about it, Edward. Are you so very different from yourself when you were human?"

_Yes,_ I thought. I'd been harmless as a human.

"There's more," I said. "She isn't ...normal," I finished lamely.

"What do you mean?" he asked out loud. He was patient. He always sounded patient, no matter if it was an old woman with a cough or a gunshot victim bleeding out.

I started with her calmness. I described everything that had happened when Jane had provoked her on our feeding day. He knew there was more.

"That's not at all like what you and Emmett were like," Carlisle said softly. "Even with Rosalie, it took a few days for her to be able to focus enough to..." He didn't need to finish that sentence. For all that Rosalie's plan had been murderous, it had been the calculated action of a woman more or less in control of herself.

He was distancing himself from things, stepping back so he could see them clinically. I'd watched him do it many times during our talks over the years. Except now I wasn't his fellow disinterested participant. Now I was the weeping relative outside the operating room, waiting to hear the worst news of my life.

"Aro thought for a moment that that might have been her gift, a calm mind," I said.

Carlisle was already shaking his head. "No, there's nothing about Bella that suggests such a gift."

"Caius thinks there must be something else about her, some characteristic of her blood or background—or in mine."

Carlisle's head tilted back, his face going blank as the implications of this hit him. "He wants you to turn more humans."

I nodded.

"He wants them to be calm newborns, as she is?"

"Yes," I said.

_And she's shown no sign of any other gift._

"I still can't read her, but that is all. Nothing past when she was human."

Carlisle wondered, and the day grew long. Thankfully, the Volturi left us alone as the sunbeams slid across the floor. Every now and then Carlisle would ask a question, which I would answer. It was all a large, beautiful, dispassionate thought puzzle. We might as well have been in his study back in Rochester. This was my treasure, these hours. I was storing them up, saving them as a memento of my life.

I heard the thoughts before the footsteps. "Demetri is on his way," I said quietly. "He's been told to ask you to leave, now that the sun is going down."

Carlisle nodded. _It is probably best if I do not wait to be told,_ he said.

I nodded, a bit more stiffly than I'd meant to.

Carlisle pulled me into another embrace. _Remember what I said, son,_ and we both knew that he did not mean his speculation on blood types. _Even if I am wrong, even if she is not the Bella Swan we knew, she needs you all the same._

"I know," I whispered into his shoulder.

Carlisle was gone before Demetri arrived. The hatchet-faced vampire looked from me to the empty doorway and back. I swore he even shrugged.

"He wants you_,_" he said.

"I'm coming."

I walked back into the audience chamber. The crowd had thinned out. Caius and Renata were both conspicuous in their absence. Aro was smiling a bit more pleasantly than usual. I knew enough to be cautious.

"Edward, do come here. Give an old man a shoulder to lean on." I went, obedient as a calf.

And I had a front-row seat to the reason Carlisle had been allowed to see me.

_Fascinating..._ Aro mused. He'd wanted to know if Carlisle thought Caius was right. He'd wanted his insight on Caius's project. _Carlisle knows far more about genetics than I do. I really must look into it. But he doesn't think that's why she took so well to this life?_

Suddenly I could understand how two men who held such deeply different views could live together for four decades and remain friends for centuries after: Carlisle shared Aro's healthiest passion.

Aro's soul, if he had one, was his curiosity. That, coupled with his great intelligence, meant that he could always find some new question or mystery, some way for the universe to keep amusing him, no matter how long his life played out. It was probably why he'd never grown as passive as Marcus or as cruel as Caius.

I could feel my mind spread wider, like a book being opened. Only the book told a terrible story.

Aro expected Carlisle to remain in the world for a very long time. More than the petrifaction, Aro's brothers were aging through their minds. Marcus and Caius might still have millennia to live, but eventually, both they and Aro's mate Sulpicia would succumb to time.

...and Aro would need a new brother.

_Insightful_, remarked Aro. I nearly started. I'd almost forgotten his hand on my shoulder.

"You could have just asked him," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

"I suppose," Aro answered.

_But then you would have owed him a favor,_ I realized. _The whole court would have expected you to make good. Maybe it wouldn't have been enough to release me, but you could have given him the worthless newborn._

_His intellect is his gift, child,_ thought Aro. _It is a trait you share with him_.

I swallowed the dryness in my mouth, barely registering the sound of shoes in the hallway behind me or the door sliding open.

_And she is far from worthless_, he concluded. "With all the excitement of Carlisle's visit, I nearly forgot to tell you," Aro said.

Bella stepped carefully into my line of sight, her lips parted in a question just as Aro whispered, "Welcome home."

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	21. Ch 20 Overture

This story is a fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels, which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. Although it contains one character, Byron, who is the invention of the fanauthor, the Volturi themselves were invented by Meyer. No party other than the submitting fanauthor may alter this work in any way.

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"The inning continued before my incredulous eyes. It was impossible to keep up with the speed at which the ball flew, the rate at which their bodies raced across the field." –Bella, _Twilight_

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Welcome home? God, could Aro get any more creepy? Well I wasn't afraid of him.

"Edward?" I asked, stopping a few feet away. I was so sick of all this, so sick of looking at him looking like he'd just lived through a holocaust and wondering what the hell had happened to cause it.

"I'm sure you two have much to talk about," Aro said gaily. "Nothing fosters young love like tales of heroic deeds in the field."

Edward looked like he'd just swallowed a gila monster. I could still hear Oleg screaming in my head. Whatever had happened out in "the field," I was pretty sure "heroic" didn't cover it.

Edward didn't look at me, but he reached out and took my hand, tugging gently for me to follow him out of the room. I had to hurry to keep up, my flat-soled shoes hitting the floor in time with his boots. I was still expecting to trip and fall on my face any second.

"Renata said you got back this morning," I told the back of his neck, "but they wouldn't let me come see you." That wasn't exactly the whole story, but no way was I getting into that mess now.

"I was ...guarding a guest," Edward answered. He turned his head toward me, seeming to study my face. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally spoke. "It was Carlisle."

I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach and then filled with balloons. Floating, happy balloons. "Carlisle?" I asked, picturing his face as I'd last seen it, kind and patient as he'd stitched my arm back together. Alice had said he'd started teaching at a medical school back east. I should have expected him to show up. "Where is he?" I asked. "Are we—"

Edward was slowly shaking his head.

"Oh," I said quietly. At some point we'd stopped walking. I stared at the wall in front of us. Carlisle had been here, but Edward didn't look happy. And Carlisle wasn't here now. "So," I said carefully, "...we're not going home today?"

"No," he answered. "We're not going home today."

I swallowed. For a second there... I pressed my lips together. Of course Carlisle couldn't just swing in for the rescue. "So, Budapest?" I asked, hoping that that was the right way to say the name of the city. I'd been imagining the worst for days.

Edward stared back at me, something flickering in the back of his eyes. "We killed them both," was all he said.

_Killed them both_. Just like that. Like cutting a string. Lucia and someone else. I tried not to think of Oleg's execution, the way his light had pulsed and flickered when Edward had told the Volturi his secrets. I felt my mouth set in a hard line. I'd thought I'd had that kind of love, once.

"Bella?" he asked.

I shook my head. "It's nothing," I said.

"No it isn't."

"You're right," I answered, in no mood to mince words. "No it isn't." My Edward, my angel, my voice through the darkness... No, the thought of him killing Lucia was not nothing. "But it's not like they gave you a choice," I added, even though it didn't feel real.

We started to move again, though I wasn't sure exactly where Edward wanted to go. He was still holding my hand, but stiffly, as if he didn't remember how. Was this how things were going to be between us? Would I spend my whole life trying not to think about last spring?

"So what happened while I was gone?" he asked.

"Nothing!" I said. Dammit, who'd told him? It couldn't have been Renata; she'd rushed back up to the tower right after Aro had let her go this morning. Edward eyed me with suspicion and I had to fight back a wince as I realized I'd answered too quickly.

"Bella?" he asked, a slight warning in his tone.

"They're not letting me walk around on my own, but I've seen more stuff," I offered, hoping to distract him with the more banal parts of my trip down to the basement where Renata'd taken me to get clothes. "They don't want me in the big library with the computers yet. Afraid I'll email Interpol or something, I guess."

It worked. "Bella, we can't joke about those things here. If someone hears you, they might not know you don't mean it."

"Who says I don't?"

"_Bella_." He turned, putting one hand on each of my upper arms. "It is our most important law. _Keep the secret._ They will kill you if you try to pull something like that. Tell me you understand. They will _kill_ you."

I tried to roll my eyes. I didn't want to have to say that I was kidding. They deserved all the trouble I could bring them. They deserved it and more.

"Bella," he insisted.

"All right; I've got it!" I snapped back. He released my arms and I felt guilty. He was only trying to protect me. But I was so tired of needing protection.

How much time would we have together? Sure, we didn't need to sleep, but what was the rule on downtime? I still wasn't too clear on where everyone _went_ when they weren't working. Did Jane ever take an afternoon off to play Bejeweled or did she walk around plotting evil every second of the day?

In any case, I eyed Edward carefully, wondering how much I could risk asking. Safe or not, it wasn't as if I could trust Renata to tell me.

"I'm strong, right?" I asked him. "Stronger than other vampires, I mean." He'd said something about Emmett being strong like it was his gift.

"Yes," he said, and I was halfway to a smile before he added, "all newborns are."

"Wait..." I paused. It was because I was a newborn? "So it's going to go away?" Oh God, was that what he'd meant about next spring?

"Yes, it usually lasts about one year," Edward answered with a confused frown.

Oh no. This was not good. This was so not good.

"What's wrong?" Edward asked.

"Nothing," I answered. If I stopped being stronger than they were... But I had a year to come up with something, like getting the hell out of Volterra.

"Bella, did something happen while I was away?" he asked. "Was there another fight?"

"No," I said, truthfully this time. It hadn't been a _fight_.

"Bella—"

"Look, forget I said anything, all right?"

Edward stared ahead of us for a long moment. "You really are infuriating, do you know that?" he told me.

"Edward, I know you're trying to take this newborn-whatever-you-are thing seriously, but not everything that happens with me is going to be your—"

I never got to finish speaking. There were footsteps and then another vampire had joined us. And that vampire couldn't be Renata or Heidi or Jane or anyone like that. I didn't have that kind of luck.

Byron looked at me first, pushing that same creepy smile all the way across his face before he even noticed that Edward was there. But Edward was there, and he was staring into the space above Byron's light brown head, listening to things that only he could hear. The other vampire looked to him and me and back with a confused frown.

Edward didn't respond. He had become a sculpture.

_Guess what, jerkwad?_ I thought bitterly._ My ex can read your mind._ But if anyone thought I was going to shout "hey na!" and burst into fifties girl pop, they were in for a nasty surprise.

I took hold of Edward's right wrist with both hands. I did not know much about vampires—at least not the kind that rounded up humans for the slaughter and ripped each other apart in the living room—but _whatever_ it was that Byron had done with me the other day, Edward was going to be angry about it and I did not want him trying to put it right.

I watched Edward's darkening gold eyes flicker back and forth and tried to imagine what he was learning. He'd be seeing it through Byron's memories, of course. What first, I wondered morbidly. Had he been following Renata and me as she'd shepherded me from the clothing vault in the basement back up to the reading room or had he just happened to see the pair of us, Renata holding my hand like I was the sidekick in some schoolgirl sitcom?

No, he had to have planned it at least a little. He'd had the flower ready.

My new memory wouldn't let gloss over any of it, not even now when I _really_ didn't want to be distracted. My first clue that something weird was going on was when he'd just appeared directly in front of me. Vampires in Volterra just didn't _do_ that, not unless they were unschooled newborns. And from what Renata had told me, even unschooled newborns were supposed to practice moving at human speeds all the time, even inside.

He'd been holding the flower out in one hand. I could barely tell a carnation from a daffodil, but it had been white and graceful with wide, smooth petals and a sweet, gentle scent. I'd been able to smell it even from three feet away, and I'd wondered when had flowers started smelling like anything but an allergy attack waiting to happen.

_"For you, signorina,"_ he'd said in slightly British-accented English.

The smile hadn't seemed creepy, not right then. In fact, it had sort of reminded me of Quil from back home, asking me if I wanted the last muffin. Renata had put her hands on her hips and said something to the effect of, _"Sulpicia won't be happy if that came from her garden, Byron,"_ and he'd given her a cocky smirk, and I'd still been wondering whether or not to reach out and take the flower. I was supposed to be pretending to be Edward's vampire girlfriend or something, but I was pretty sure I was allowed to accept it if it was just a welcome-to-our-evil-lair gift, and I was curious about why it smelled the way it did.

I'd turned my head toward Renata, my mouth already opening to ask what she thought, and the minute I'd taken my eyes off Byron a boa constrictor had wrapped around both my upper arms and there was a rush of air and then he'd had me pinned against the far wall.

_"Byron!"_ Renata had called out. _"You stop that right now!"_

It only took me half a second to realize what had happened, Byron's smile seeming much less friendly now that I saw it close up. I'd wriggled to get loose, surprised when I managed to push his arms out from my body.

_"You're a strong one, aren't you?"_

_"Stay away from me!"_ I'd snarled at him.

_"Are you sure you want me to, missy?"_ he'd answered. And _that_ had made me angry, like every middle-school boy who'd ever made a PMS joke. I'd scowled and scowled but he'd only grinned like he knew exactly what I was up to and it was nothing at all.

He'd zipped around behind me, close enough to hum his amused chuckle in my ear. He'd been gone before I could land a punch, materializing by my left ear just in time to brush my hair across my neck. I'd pulled my knee up to kick him, but he'd sidestepped, matching me move for move like we were doing some twisted prom dance.

He'd been moving so fast that my eyes could barely track him, ducking out of sight almost as soon as I'd gotten my eyes to focus on his smirking face. It felt like being in a snowstorm or in a horror movie where the ghosts choose a victim and don't stop until she's pulled out her hair and most of her mind.

And the angrier I got, the more he smiled.

_"Byron, stop it or I'll make you stop!"_ Renata had shouted.

_"Don't be like that, Renata,"_ he'd responded. And when his head was turned I'd stomped on his foot as hard as I could. He'd staggered and I'd heard the stone floor crack underneath us. _"Nice kick,"_ he'd said.

_"Yes!"_ I'd shouted back inarticulately._ "Leave me alone or I'll kick your head in!"_

_"I guess I'll just have to wait and give you a fall flower, then,"_ he'd answered. _"Early spring at the latest."_

There had been another pair of hands on me and I'd wondered if Felix or someone else had come to help Byron rip me up, but it had only been Renata holding onto me, her face screwed up like she was concentrating hard on something.

_"Oh come on,"_ Byron had said, like a schoolboy to a finger-shaking chaperone.

_"She could have killed you, you know that?"_ Renata had snapped back._ "You know what newborns are like."_

Byron had only shrugged. _"Fair enough. Until another day, missy."_ And he'd been gone.

And the whole thing had been so goddamned _confusing_. I could tell that Byron had been trying to accomplish something, but nothing I could think of made any sense. I mean, I'd seen that awful fight between Edward and Felix and I could tell that Byron hadn't been trying to do _that_, hurt me or scare me into doing what he said. I'd still been shaking, though, and I couldn't say for sure that it was only from anger.

_"He shouldn't have done that,"_ Renata had said into the empty air, her hands still gently touching my arms. _"He ought to know better."_ And I'd almost felt better myself until she'd added, _"You're still too new."_

I shuddered, and Edward's eyes turned toward me before fixing on Byron again. He was breathing just a little harder than he needed to. The muscles in his forearm flexed like knotted steel, but I didn't let go. There was one thing that I did not want and I did _not_ want Edward to try to kick Byron's ass for messing with me. I could remember enough about that fight with Felix to know that when it came to the Volturi, Edward was completely outclassed. More than I wanted to smash Byron's teeth out through his Euro-hipster haircut, I didn't want Edward to get hurt.

"Bella," Edward said with mock calmness, not taking his eyes off Byron, "would you excuse us for a moment? Our friend here and I need to have a word."

"Edward," I said warningly. "You don't need to—"

"Actually, I'm quite sure I do," he said, looking at me this time.

"Edward, its nothing."

"Stay here and don't say a word until I get back," he said, twisting painlessly out of my hands. "Byron, isn't it?" he asked in in what was otherwise a friendly tone of voice—other than the electric charge of menace running through it like the crack of a whip.

"Yes," the other vampire answered guardedly. He looked Edward up and down as if what he saw didn't much impress him. In a way I could see where he was coming from. Byron wasn't as tall as Demetri or as imposing as Felix, but he had arms like tree trunks. Edward looked for all the world like he'd stepped out of an Ambercrombie and Fitch ad, long and lean but not exactly imposing.

"It's come to my attention, that while I was gone you did not behave in a manner befitting a man of your position. In fact, it seems that certain impertinences took place."

Byron's eyebrows shot up into his hair. I had to sympathize. Of all the things I'd been expecting, Edward doing a Jane Austen imitation hadn't been on the top of my list.

"I don't believe my—my _lady_ gave you her permission to accost her in that way. Am I right, Byron?"

"Your lady?" Byron repeated. "What is this, Medieval Times?"

"I want to hear you say that the incident will not be repeated," Edward said levelly.

Byron gave a little laugh. "Look, if she's too young for me then she's too young for you. You've hardly got any right to—"

For a second, it was as if I could hear thoughts myself, and the whole room was thinking, _"Wrong answer!"_ Then Byron let out a surprised grunt as Edward pile-drove him back around the corner and into the next hallway.

I said a word that Renee would have smacked my mouth for and then hurried after them. It was wider in here, with columns supporting the high ceiling and carefully cut windows high on the walls letting shafts of sunlight down onto the floor. Edward and Byron were dodging around two of the pillars in the far corner of the room. The one or two vampires passing through had already turned to stare.

I registered footsteps behind me and risked looking over my shoulder to see Heidi and two other vampires whose names I didn't know. "What's going on?" one of them called out.

There was another snarl and a crash of vampire flesh against stone and the two of them were rolling heavily across the floor, Byron's cloak tearing thickly. Beside me, Heidi was shaking her head. I felt my shoulder blades clench together. Any second now, she and her friends would pounce in and pull the two of them apart and probably beat Edward to a pulp. I looked Heidi up and down, wondering if I could take her or slow her down or ...hell, do anything useful for once.

Byron snarled, deep and low as Edward regained his feet. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Heidi interfered.

"Aren't you going to do something?" I hissed in a loud whisper.

Heidi looked at me like I'd just turned on my cell phone at the theater and then turned back to watch.

I did too, and then I felt my face go blank. In my human memories, there was a field, and thunder. The baseball game. Esme had said something, something about Edward being fast. Well she was right.

Edward let out a shout as Byron aimed a heavy-fisted punch toward his solar plexus.

It never connected. I felt my eyes get wide. Byron knew what he was doing. Even _I_ could tell from the way he varied his punches that Byron knew how to handle himself in a fight, but Edward always managed to be somewhere else.

Byron had been fast, but Edward—Edward was faster, breaking in between moves to strike at Byron's face and eyes. I looked around the room again, wide angles with plenty of space, and I felt my mind open up. Just like in the fight with Felix, Edward was dodging Byron's blows just a split second before he moved, but this time, he had enough space to make his speed count for something.

"What in hell do you think you're doing?" Byron yelled.

Edward didn't answer, not with words, anyway. The two of them were moving like bluejays in a jetstream, fluttering through the dusty air almost faster than I could see. Byron looked completely different without that damned smile. He looked angry and dangerous and fully capable of taking Edward apart piece by piece—but only if he could catch him.

Byron still looked tough, but it was a frazzled kind of tough, with his hair and clothes in disarray. I looked from his gasping face to Edward's low smirk and back. Somehow, Edward was getting the better of the fight. I shifted from one foot to another, and I honestly couldn't say for sure whether I wanted him to stop and run away...

Edward ducked Byron's lunge and slid easily out of his reach, bracing himself against the near pillar.

...or keep fighting until Byron dropped...

I saw a ripple move through Edward's lean body before there was another rush of air and Byron was doubled over with a low grunt of pain, both Edward's feet hitting the floor a moment later.

...or tell me how to join in and get my share of him.

Edward's eyes shot my way and I realized that I was growling, low and deep and far back in my throat. I swallowed hard, stopping it, and Edward pulled his attention away from me in time to see Byron make a lightning-fast lunge that I knew, _knew_, in the deepest most instinctive part of my being was going to tear Edward's throat from his body and leave him helpless.

I covered my eyes and neck, cringing at the metallic wrench and the general shout coming from the other vampires who'd come—I now realized—solely to watch two of their brethren rip each other apart. _Oh God..._

Beside me, Heidi laughed.

"Dammit!"

"Watch your language," Edward answered confidently.

I looked up, seeing Edward standing quite unharmed on one side of the hallway. There was something small and pale between his finger and thumb.

Byron had one hand pressed to the side of his head as he snarled throatily at Edward, "You ripped off my _ear!_"

"I'll give it back if you promise to use it to listen," Edward said calmly, like some freakish version of a kindergarten teacher.

Heidi muttered something in what was either Italian or German. The vampire to her left, a woman with curly hair and a square jaw, chuckled.

"I won't have your throat for this," Edward said, as calmly as if they were both standing on the sidewalk. "Bella seems to want to avoid any unpleasantness and, unlike you, I know how to respect a lady's wishes."

Byron answered with a low snarl. "Give it back, asshole!"

"Well I suppose you don't really need it. I hear longer hairstyles are coming back."

"It won't happen again."

"What won't?" Edward prompted.

The male beside the square-jawed woman was shaking his head slightly, "Shouldn't push his luck..."

Edward's eyes flicked to Afton and then back to Byron.

Byron turned to look at me, an echo of his earlier smile making a comeback. "Okay," he said. "I think I've made my point anyway."

Edward flipped the whitish scrap of flesh toward its owner, who caught it before it hit the floor. An instant later he was by my side, one hand on my elbow. "Let's go," he said. I was too startled to do anything but what he said. "Don't look back," he whispered into my hair as we moved away from the small crowd. "I'll explain."

He was darn right he would.

"I saw someplace in Demetri's memories," he said quietly. "It should do for our purposes. We'll go there now."

"Our purposes?" I asked, tugging on his sleeve. Obligingly, Edward drew to a stop. Behind us, I could hear Byron muttering to Afton as his and Edward's audience started to break up. "Edward, what in hell _was_ all that?"

He blinked, his gold eyes losing some of their hardness. "You really don't know?" he asked.

"Some guy messed with me in the hallways yesterday and you pulled one of his ears off his head. Sure. What's hard to understand about that?" I said. "But the part about you doing it two minutes after telling _me_ to keep my nose clean and not make waves has me a little stumped."

"I'm sorry about that," he said, "but if I hadn't fought him, he would have interpreted it as cowardice on my part. He'd have done it again—or something worse. I'm sorry you had to see me behave so badly, but it prevented more trouble than it caused, I promise you."

"Okay..." I trailed off. I didn't really understand where he was going with that, but I had an idea at least. It could sit for a while. "But why did Byron go after me in the first place? Is it some kind of torture-the-new-girl thing?"

Edward's mouth opened. Then he closed it again. "No," he said. Then he turned and pointed to our left. "It's this way," he told me, "one of the access tunnels," he added before I could ask. "They don't use it this time of year. No one will follow us." We moved into a vestibule with a worn grate in the floor. Edward knelt down to open it, lifting the heavy bars with ease as a few flakes of rust fell away.

"Bella... Byron's methods might have been..." he looked away. "He wasn't trying to attack you the other day."

"I know _that_," I said, though I wasn't quite sure why I did. I wanted to know what _was_ going on. Edward knew and wasn't telling me, and that was pissing me right the hell on off. "Renata acted like it was no big deal."

"In a way it wasn't," he said, closing his eyes. "He was showing off."

"But Heidi and everybody didn't get there until you were already fighting," I pointed out.

Edward set his jaw, staring at the wall for a long moment. "Bella, what do you think happens when two vampires meet in a city ...or in the wild?" he asked, setting the grate beside the dark square opening.

"You're not snow leopards, Edward."

He shook his head. "You've only ever seen covens," he said. "My family, the Volturi. Even James's coven was actually unusually large. We are not social creatures," he told me. "If you have companions, it means you have to share your food, kill that much less often, move on that much sooner. It's not that unusual for two vampires to fight each other over territory. Do you understand?"

"I guess," I said. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"So if you meet a vampire whom you _don't_ want to fight, perhaps someone with whom you'd like to have ...some other type of encounter," he added awkwardly, "well, you have to get that message across rather quickly, before your new friend does any damage."

...encounter?

I suddenly had a good idea of why Edward was having so much trouble talking about this and had to swallow the sick feeling in my stomach.

"Byron offered you a gift, then he showed you that he was fast and strong, that he _could_ fight if he wanted while at the same time passing up a half-dozen opportunities to actually hurt you," Edward went on. "It was his way of making his intentions known."

"So, uh..." I said, the words sticking in my throat, the pictures blossoming in my mind like mold across a rotten fruit, "he was going to, um..." My hands moved with the words I didn't want to say.

"No, no," Edward said, stopping me. "Even the Volturi don't approve of that. It is more like he was trying to impress you."

I felt better but not much. I suddenly had a vision of my third grade reading teacher pushing a Kleenex into my hand and saying, "Honey, they're only doing it because they like you." It hadn't made any damned sense at the time, and I didn't like it any better now.

"He couldn't just talk to me?" I asked. "'How about the Marlins?' and all that?"

Edward smiled sadly. "Our instincts don't go away when we move into cities and put on gray robes, Bella," he told me. "Byron was doing what vampires have been doing for thousands, maybe millions of years. He just ...adapted it a little. I'm not sure, but..." He looked away. "Byron wouldn't have meddled with you if he'd thought that you and I really were together."

I sat down on the floor next to the grate. I hadn't been upset earlier, but now I was positively sick to my stomach. Medieval attitude. Edward had warned me about that. But then, hadn't he just fought a duel over my honor or something? And... And Edward was really from the Victorian period, wasn't he? Back in Forks, he'd only been pretending to be my age. What if he'd been hiding things, things that he didn't have to hide in Volterra?

_And if this is how he takes it when someone gives me a flower, what will he do when we see Jacob again?_ Maybe nothing, I hoped.

"It's normal here, Bella," Edward was saying. "You were vulnerable, and I showed weakness, and someone moved to take advantage of that. It's not civilized, but that's how things are. There are only a few ways to deal with it."

I pointed my eyes at him, not really listening.

"Here," he said, holding out his hand for me to take. "It'll be at least an hour or two before Aro wants me again. No one will come looking for us."

I looked at his hand, then back at him again. "What are we going to do?" I asked carefully.

"I'm going to teach you to fight."

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Taking all suggestions for the improvement of this chapter.

No, he's not named after Lord Byron. "Byron" seems to fit into the cultural hodgepodge of Volturi given names.

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	22. Ch 21 Target

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is a fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the fanauthor may alter the text of this work in any way.

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"Looking you in that way, analyzing you as a target. Seeing all the ways I can kill you... It just makes it too real for me." –Edward, _Breaking Dawn_

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I let go of the edges of the opening and dropped perhaps twelve feet down onto the dank, stone-cobbled floor of the tunnel. The jolt of my landing felt good against my knees, my spine, my nerves. The past eight minutes had shot them right to hell.

I had not been ready for that. I'd known intellectually how men here in Volterra behaved, but I had not expected it this soon. I'd thought the taboo against bedding newborns would protect her a little longer, but it seemed that her quick development was not going unnoticed. It seemed that Byron assumed that Bella's control of her emotions meant that she was also able to balance out her thirst to the point where she could experience other physical desires. And that she'd suffer his advances.

_But you don't know she wouldn't, do you, Edward Cullen?_ my own voice rang in my head. _And in truth, why shouldn't she? He's strong and intelligent and almost civilized ...apart from being a murderous fiend, just like she—_ I knocked the thought out of my mind. It wouldn't help. Thinking like that wouldn't help.

I'd still been reeling from Carlisle's visit, never mind the fallout from my grotesque mission with Demetri and the others, and there Byron had been, running his fingers over the memory as if he were still dragging them across her cheek, as if he were taunting me.

It was illusion, of course. The poor fool hadn't had the slightest idea what he'd been in for.

Of course, neither had I.

The raw _anger_ that had ignited my mind when I'd realized what had occurred in my absence... I couldn't make sense of it, not then and not now. The whole incident was starting to feel hazy, like something that had happened to someone else. Surely I couldn't have been that angry and still spoken to him in the level way that I had. Surely I couldn't have let him get away with only a torn ear.

I mentally thanked my human mother and father ...or tutors. I couldn't remember exactly who'd drilled those manners into me until form had become second nature. I was reasonably confident that that was why I'd acquitted myself as well as I had with Byron, speaking to him instead of leaping for his throat and treating him even worse than he'd treated Bella. There was no need for her to have to deal with two barbarians in one day.

"You can come down," I called up at her hesitating silhouette.

Framed against the square of light from the upper chambers, she took hold of the sides of the portal and swung her legs underneath. I looked away just in time, remembering that she was wearing a dress instead of the jeans that the human Bella had favored.

She would need to feed again soon. The newborn red of her eyes didn't fade with thirst the way older vampires' did, and she was too young to be able to tell the pressing thirst of true need from the constant, low-level craving that we all felt all the time. I couldn't go by my own appetites eather; she was young. She would not be able to hold out as long as I could. It was far too early to start pushing that envelope.

I didn't imagine it would be difficult to contact a livestock dealer, but I'd have to find out how to requisition funds from the Volturi communal accounts, where to send the trucks, get help unloading them discreetly. A big logistical mess.

She landed on the ground beside me in a slight crouch, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

"That was kind of fun," she said, letting me see a flash of white teeth in the dim light. A memory came to me, a new vampire with a round face and curly hair, and miles upon miles of all but empty mountains.

Emmett had spent weeks smashing boulders and chasing me up trees like I was a goddamned raccoon. Truth be told, "fun" hadn't covered it. She deserved something more like that, I realized with a pang. Being a city vampire didn't come close.

"What is it?" asked Bella.

"Nothing," I said. "Shall we get started?"

The tunnels below and to the west of the compound seemed adequate. The space was close—I'd have preferred an open field well outside the city—but I might as well have wanted the whole Cascade mountain range; any further than this and Demetri would come looking for us.

"We'll start simply," I said. She nodded, her mouth and cheeks perfectly still, though I could suspect that she was still put out with me, Byron, our situation or all of it. I wasn't too keen on it myself. "I'll come at you, and you try to repel me." She nodded again.

This would not be easy for me, but there was no one else I could trust to do it. I opened my eyes and fixed them on her smooth form, taking in her posture, her stance, her size and shape, pushing the thought of her as a person from my mind. I threw myself into analyzing her as a target, seeing all the ways I could kill her.

One empty heartbeat passed and then I sprang.

She reacted quickly, trying to duck to the side and grab my wrist, but even in this small space, I was too fast for her. I had her pinned against the wall in two seconds.

She did better on her second attempt. That time it took me four seconds, my canines pressed meaningfully against her throat as her low gasp shook us both.

I carefully released her neck and pulled away, but not before I inadvertently drew in a full breath. I tried not to notice, but it was undeniably pleasant. I breathed out, pushing the lingering flowers out of my mind.

"Time out," I murmured. I felt her body relax against me, and I felt an involuntary tingle run through my skin before I could step back to a more decent distance and compose myself. I hadn't been lying when I'd told her she was beautiful. She was. More than that, her smooth limbs and long dark hair were exactly to my taste. By normal standards, I was lucky.

It was only her status as a newborn that named me deviant in Volturi eyes. While it was not unheard of for a vampire to take someone he'd turned for a mate, the fact that only the older partner could draw any pleasure from it gave the practice a lecherous air.

In this way, her self-control was actually a problem. It was making the men of Volterra forget that she was still undeveloped in other ways. At least it had better have been that Byron had only forgotten. Otherwise, he was due another beating.

"You have to protect your neck," I told her. "A strike to the throat is incapacitating, at least for a while. Even a fractured skull won't put you down as long. It's the closest thing we have to a kill shot."

"I remember," she said.

I blinked.

_James. Arizona_.

"All right," I said. "Ready?" She nodded, and I came at her again.

I should have started this long ago, I realized as I slipped under her guard. Real lessons. Real survival. She was going to need it. I grit my teeth, nodding as she managed to dodge me. She was my ally. She was my charge, and I had not been doing my duty.

I hadn't realized how much I had been counting on Carlisle to come and rescue us ...or to at least rescue her and take this crushing responsibility off my shoulders.

Well that wasn't going to happen. It was time to man up, as Emmett would have put it.

Bella braced for me to land a blow to her chest, so I ducked low and swept her feet out from under her. She landed in the dust with a thud, but she was back on her feet before I could do any more damage.

Now that the shock of seeing my father was wearing off, I felt different. I felt a new stillness inside me, but it wasn't like the icy blackness that had covered my first days in Volterra. It was a living stillness, as if my heart had become some cautious animal, watching the world, waiting for the right moment to break cover.

"There are three ways to keep the men of Volterra from bothering you," I told her. "They can develop true brotherly feeling toward us, but that's not likely, at least not any time soon," I added. "Or they can come to fear me—" I lunged at her again.

Bella shoved my arm to the side, smiling widely when my palm hit the wall of the tunnel instead of her unprotected neck.

"—or they can fear you," I added over my shoulder.

"I like that last one," she said, her white teeth flashing in the dim light.

"Then let's make you dangerous," I added with a grin of my own. Smiling made the hollow place in my chest ache strangely, but it was a good strange. "The first one would have been better," I admitted, shaking flakes of stone off my skin, "but I've made myself too unpopular."

She shrugged. "Who cares what these people think?" she asked, chin in the air.

"We both should," I answered without delay. "Bella, we can't afford to make more enemies here."

She folded her arms, staring at the tunnel wall. It would be better to let her get it out of her system, I supposed. Better that she take her frustrations out on me than throw a tantrum or launch some scheme and get herself killed. "Bella, I'm serious," I said. "If we start to seem like more trouble than we're worth, we will both die of it. If we so much as think of undermining the Volturi, even in small ways, Aro will know," I added with a tap to my head. "He keeps me by him too much for us to hide anything."

Bella looked up at me suddenly, as if I had just said something very important. I exhaled in relief. Perhaps I was getting through to her about the seriousness of our situation.

"Try holding your arms like this," I said, dropping into a crouch. "It's a good defensive posture."

She nodded tersely, mimicking my stance as I prepared to attack her again.

We continued like that for a few hours. Most of the time I managed to outmaneuver her, but I occasionally found myself the victim of her newborn strength, which she had not entirely learned to control But the smile that would flash on her face after she'd knocked me sprawling on the floor was worth the discomfort. I found that I quite liked making her smile.

I remembered what Carlisle had told me, that this was no time to wonder whether she was the same Bella Swan I'd known in Forks or not. I shook my head. I couldn't pull the question from my mind. One moment this Bella would turn her hands or push back her hair the way my human Bella had and I'd almost be fooled, but it couldn't truly be her, could it? The quiet creature that I'd become sniffed the air and blinked its dark eyes, missing nothing.

Either I'd ended Bella's life or I'd condemned her soul. There was no getting around that. But not knowing which one, not knowing if my love was still with me in danger or gone from me and safe, that was eating me alive.

Bella tried to get her arms around me, but only succeeded in snagging my hand. I made a mental note to teach her wristlocks next.

"You were ready for me that time!" she said lightly.

"_You_ have to be ready," I answered, crouching down for my next attack. "A fight can happen at any time. I'm not even sure what sets them off."

Bella seemed to sober at that. "Edward..." she closed her eyes. "I understand if you don't want to tell me. I know it..."

"What is it?" I asked gently.

She looked at me, and again I cursed my inability to read her thoughts. That would have made all of this so much easier. Then I could have answered her without putting her through this.

"Did you really have to?" she asked, her voice like a soft rain falling.

"Did I have to what?"

"Because I think I can deal with it if you swear to me that you only did it because you had to," she said, stepping toward me. She was holding out one hand, like she would touch my arm, but she never did. "When Oleg was being executed..."

I remembered. I remembered having my arms around her while she shook in tearless sobs. I should have realized that it would have affected her.

"You mean his coven," I said, hating the emptiness in my voice.

She nodded, eyelids sliding closed like iron over hot coals.

And did I really have to kill them. What was in her mind? Did she think of me descending on them like some dark angel, tearing their lives from their bodies? Was I as awful a monster in her eyes as I'd always tried to convince her that I was?

"Yes" was the answer, but it wasn't what she really needed to hear. She needed to understand what had really happened in Budapest, but I wasn't sure that it wouldn't make things worse. I remembered Felix crushing my head against the floor. I remembered the brutal certainty in Alec's voice. I didn't want her to know.

I also had a million excuses. Sending me meant that they hadn't sent Jane. I'd asked Alec to spare Miklos. I found that I couldn't tell her any of those either. It would have felt like I was trying to lessen what I'd done.

"They're going to tell me to do worse things," I said at last. "And yes, I'll have to do them."

"Because otherwise Aro will hurt us?"

I nodded. "Yes." She understood that part, at least. Thank God.

"It won't always be spies," I said. "Sometimes, it will be vampires who've behaved too brutally or fed to liberally on humans—"

I cut off as her shoulders gave a heavy twitch. I'd said the wrong thing. That had been the wrong thing to say. "I'm sorry," I murmured.

She shook her head. "Let's get back to work," she told me, dropping back into her stance.

I mimicked her, eyes sweeping her body for the best place to strike, "You've got to resign yourself to this, Bella." I said, inwardly coiling my body like a spring. "Unless Aro changes his mind and lets you leave, this is what our lives are going to be like."

She looked up, mouth dropping open just as my palms hit her shoulders, knocking us both toward the far end of the tunnel. I lost my balance, sending us both skidding into the floor of the tunnel. I blinked to clear the dust from my eyes and realized to my embarrassment that I'd thrown my arms around her.

"What do you mean?" she asked warily as I attempted to find some decent way to extricate myself.

"I mean that once your newborn strength wears off, you're no more useful to him than any other vampire," I said, setting my palms against the tunnel floor. It also meant that she wouldn't be more useful to Carlisle, and that had more to do with it. "If he thinks he doesn't need you to keep me in line, he might let you leave here. Carlisle almost had him convinced today."

"Leave here?" she echoed, still making no move to get up. "Alone?"

"You wouldn't be alone," I promised her. "Carlisle and Esme would be glad to have you."

"Is that what you want?" she asked, the glowing embers of her eyes searching my face. "For me to leave you here?"

I remembered the rippling malice of the guard surrounding Oleg at his travesty of a trial, the black delight as he was torn to pieces. The thought of my newborn Bella as the object of that terrible focus was enough to turn my insides to ice. I answered her with no hesitation.

"Of course I don't want you here."

Quick as a snake, she gave me a push and I landed heavily in the dirt as she got to her feet.

"Bella, we should keep practicing," I called after her.

"Edward, you just told me that you wished I'd—" she screwed her eyes shut. "I need a gosh darn _minute_. I can't look at you right now," she muttered, eying the distance between herself and the floor above. A second passed and she jumped up, snagging the sides of the opening with both arms. Her legs kicked in the patch of light, one shoe dangling off her toe before she disappeared back into the compound.

"Bella!" I called after her. I took two steps toward the portal and jumped, catching the sides smoothly and vaulting through. I had to catch up to her before she lost me. She shouldn't be walking around the compound alone. She didn't know where to go yet and Renata was still—

"You'd best let her go a while, young one," said a smooth voice from behind me.

Marcus, I realized before I turned around. His thoughts were steady, slow, unmistakable in this frenetic windstorm of vampiric experience. When I met his eyes, I found he was smiling. It wasn't Aro's indulgent grin; it wasn't Caius's glittering smirk. It was oddly unsettling to see Marcus look anything but bored, and he did not look bored now.

The tiny animal that my spirit had become poked one glittering eye from its den. Still waiting.

_There, Brother,_ he thought. _I did not deliberately seek them out, as you asked, but now that I've seen them, allow me my amusements as I have allowed you yours._ Distracted as I was, I wondered if Marcus always addressed Aro in his thoughts.

I started, looking the way Bella had gone and then back to Marcus again. I'd never been in Marcus's presence without Aro or Caius as well. I'd always had some more present threat to demand my attention. I now found that Marcus's mind was as clear as Aro's but ideas did not take the same shape there. Aro was all logic and deduction. Marcus focused on the interplay between people, passively watching rather than trying to reason things out.

To Marcus's mind, I was a three-way property. I could help the Volturi build a newborn army. That was Caius's project. I could help them see thought patterns in crowds as they developed in many minds at once. That was Aro's point of interest.

Marcus's red-gray eyes tracked down the corridor where Bella had fled.

...and I had a human mate whom I'd turned myself. That was Marcus's. And he'd been denied his rights.

"Sir?" I asked, not sure what else to call him. "Master" still burned my throat.

"Let her go a while," he repeated. "Give her some time to become less angry with you. The more you chase her, the longer that will take."

I frowned, looking the way Bella had gone and then back to Marcus again.

_Fool,_ he thought. _The greatest gift of our kind and he squanders it_. Interest and irritation were stirring ripples in the thick boredom of his mind.

"I don't share Aro's views about singers," I answered coldly. I'd have rather had her back than tasted that sweet blood a thousand times over.

He raised an eyebrow. I blinked. He _had_ been thinking about singers, hadn't he?

_Ah yes, the boy does not need touch to hear our thoughts. I shall have to become used to that, I suppose_.

"I try to be discreet," I offered.

"I appreciate that," he said back.

"Why doesn't Aro want you to come looking for Bella and me?" I asked, suddenly bold. Though I felt slightly ashamed to admit it, in some low, brutal way, winning the fight with Byron had made me confident.

Marcus folded his hands across his chest, not breaking his mild expression.

"Or is it Caius?" I said.

His bland smile widened. _You will find that I can be discreet too. Aro warned me about your tricks._

I felt my eyes narrow. Marcus's mind was formidable, but he did not have Aro's understanding of my gift. I was able to catch scraps.

_...part of my leverage over him, Brother_. _...ask only that you do not reveal..._

A set of footsteps distracted me, footsteps and thoughts. Rolfe was coming. He'd been sent to look for me. Damn it all.

I looked at Marcus and then down the hall. I had to find Bella. Surely Aro and Caius couldn't object to my seeing Bella back to Renata before going back to being Aro's eye in the crowd. She was still a newborn, after all.

A second later the burly vampire all but bounced into the room, checking at the door to make his bow to Marcus, who nodded back distractedly.

"So do you already know why I'm here?" Rolfe asked.

Odd... Rolfe's thoughts didn't seem contemptuous ...or disgusted or anything else that I'd have expected from one of the Volturi. He seemed more like a man coming to get his fortune told by a beachside faux-gypsy than a soldier sent to give me my orders.

_I wonder if he notices,_ Marcus thought as he watched the confusion on my face. _Ah, yes, young one. I told my brothers to send Rolfe rather than Felix whenever reasonably practical. Renata was my idea as well. I used to do this all the time, you know._

I could figure that out later. For now, I decided to play along. "You want to know about the fight upstairs," I said.

He gave a little chuckle. "Maybe later. In the meantime, the masters want you to come and—"

I lost the rest of his spoken words as they were swallowed up by the sickening image in his mind. Not that Rolfe found it sickening. He was actually excited.

"I have to find Bella first," I said, my voice coming out much lower than I'd expected.

_Oh come on. That doesn't gross him out too, does it?_ Rolfe thought incredulously._ It's not like he hasn't done it before._ Now I saw Bella's turning day from deep back in the crowd. I noted sickly that, from Rolfe's perspective at least, I'd seemed to have been enjoying myself.

"I'll come with you," he volunteered, trotting toward me. "We'd better make it quick."

I nodded, turning away from Marcus and heading down the east hallway, where Bella had gone. Mentally, I reached out, trying to ignore Rolfe's misguided enthusiasm. Even if Bella wanted to be alone, this wasn't a large place. Someone must have seen her.

Two vampires heading toward library duty. No, Bella wasn't in their thoughts. A human doorman turning a guest away. At least Bella hadn't gone near the street. Felix planning how to spend a few off-duty hours. No, and thank God for it. A secretary carrying some forms to accounting, and she was watching a strange, dark-haired vampire walk toward her, something unsettling in her too-bright eyes and—

I broke into a run. Beside me, Rolfe made a surprised sound, but it was lost in the high-pitched, human scream that washed over us like a wave.

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	23. Ch 22 Help

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is a fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

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"I struggled to find words for the feelings that flooded through me, but I had no words strong enough to hold them. For a long moment, I drowned in them. When I surfaced, I was not the same man." –Edward, _Midnight Sun_

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It was so good... It went from my mouth all the way to my belly, wiping all my thoughts away. It was so good, only there was something bad about it. But that didn't matter, not now. I didn't want to remember.

Strong arms grabbed me by the shoulders, hard, ripping me away. The snarl seemed to be born from the empty space between my prey and me as I scrabbled and pulled free so that I could round on my attacker. I had to finish. I had to get back to—

I froze in place to see Edward, a horrifying intensity covering his face as his arms reached out to catch mine. I clapped my hands over my mouth, pinky finger slipping in the wetness around my chin.

My mind was falling to the ground like a dead moth, light as a leaf, but stiff and frozen. The world was coming back. It was coming back, only it had changed while I'd been away. There was something dark and terrible that hadn't been there before. I could taste it in my mouth. I could see it reflected in Edward's eyes.

Something was making a noise behind me, a choked, wet whimpering. I started to look over my shoulder, and then Edward's hands were on either side of my face, holding me still. Slowly, never breaking eye contact, he shook his head.

"Easy," someone was saying behind us. "Easy now..." Only he wasn't saying it to me.

I could remember walking down the hallway a few minutes earlier, one hand pressed to the side of my face as if I wanted to stop myself from crying. I remembered thinking how ridiculous that was, wanting to be able to cry so that I could want not to cry. I'd been upset about something, but that hardly seemed to matter now. And then I'd noticed that it was the first time I'd really been alone since they'd let me out of the cell. I'd been glad. I knew that I'd been more and more irritated as the days had worn on and the only explanation I had was that Renata or Edward or Heidi or _somebody_ was always in my face.

I'd had half a second to wonder what to do with my new and certainly temporary freedom when I'd heard someone trip in high-heeled shoes—I'd done it myself often enough to know the sound—and then there had been a funny, quiet little tearing noise.

Something was twisting me up like I was made of tar inside my skin. Something was wringing me tighter and tighter until I wished I would break.

Edward stepped toward me, fitting arms like steel girders around my waist. It wasn't an embrace; he was holding me back. I didn't fight. The smell of blood was still in the air, and I didn't know what I'd do next.

Edward gave a tug, he wanted us to leave, but I could still move my neck, so I looked behind me. A thin trail of blood stained the otherwise immaculate floor, just enough to make me awfully, terribly hungry. There was a human, held half-upright in Demetri's arms. Her face was screwed up as she held in a cry. Her right leg looked like an entire pack of dogs had been at it.

My stomach heaved, or at least, the rest of me reacted as if it were going to. Edward gripped me tighter, but I didn't try to get loose. Deep down, I didn't think my body was ever going to give this blood away.

She wasn't Gianna, at least. She looked about forty; I could see the half-millimeter of gray in the part of her hair.

"I am so sorry," I mouthed, but there was no breath behind it. I started to reach out toward her, but Edward grabbed my arm, his other hand getting painfully tight on my hip. I let him. I couldn't blame him.

"Easy," Demetri was saying in his cold, calm voice as he put his hands on either side of her face. His eyes were going black with the thirst, but he seemed every inch in control of himself. Is that what I'd be like one day? "Easy," Demetri said, more gently as the human's eyes stopped rolling and fixed on his.

"I'm sorry," I said, louder. The twisting feeling eased up a little. She wasn't dead. I'd gone for her leg—right where she'd cut herself—so maybe she wouldn't die.

Edward's body was so close to mine that I could feel every muscle go stiff as he shouted, "Wait! Don't—"

The crunching noise, worse than knuckles, went through the woman's neck, Demetri's hands, my feet, my bones, my soul. She cracked.

There was a faint ringing sound. There were high, deep cries echoing off the walls. It was all smaller. Edward, Demetri, the body, they were all further away and my feet were scrabbling against the floor and the cool wall against my shoulder blades was thrumming and crackling and any second it would give way and swallow me into it.

My lips were moving and I could hear something. Edward was next to me again, arms yanking me away from the wall, forward onto the floor as the words spilled out. "She wouldn've died. She wouldn've died. She wouldn've died..."

"With what you did to her?" Demetri said, words like a knife right into me. "It doesn't matter. Even in Volterra, hospitals ask questions. Our humans do not live to cause them."

"Demetri!" Edward snapped. His voice was like an ice pack chilled twenty degrees too cold. I needed it, but it burned me. "We have to keep her calm," he hissed. I was in no mood to complain.

Demetri let the woman's carcass fall to the floor. "Then teach her what these things truly are," he said. "They aren't pets. Yes, we see to their needs, but they are here to serve us," he said.

"You could have turned her." The words came out of Edward's mouth, and that alone made me start.

"So could you," Demetri answered. He turned and walked away, unhurried.

"Come on," Edward muttered in my ear. I nodded against his cheek. We left the room, but even holding my breath that smell, that wonderful smell of blood seemed to follow me.

I'd killed someone. Maybe I hadn't struck the final blow, but that didn't matter. If Edward hadn't pulled me off her, I would have sucked her dry. I could still remember the feel of that hot, wet, sweet—

_No_. I said. Jacob in the living room. Jacob walking away from me toward Sam. Jacob begging me not to come to Italy because if I did something terrible would happen...

My breath was coming in hitching sobs as I pressed my dry eyes against Edward's sleeve, but it wasn't really crying. It couldn't make me feel tired and clean afterward, like crying was supposed to. I held onto him, even though I knew he couldn't anchor me. I'd thought that I only needed Edward, but I needed him and I needed to _not be like this_.

"Edward, how do I..." I closed me eyes. "How do I _stop_?"

Edward's voice was strangely quiet. "You don't, Bella. There's no going back."

He'd warned me. He'd warned me. He'd warned me a million years ago in Forks, and I hadn't cared. I _hadn't cared_.

"Come on. Let's get you cleaned up."

I'd taken a hot shower the day I'd gotten back from Arizona. I'd turned the steam up until every inch of skin not covered by a cast had turned red and I'd scrubbed until Alice had confiscated my sponge. I'd managed to get rid of the hospital smells, but the feel of James's hands and incisors had lingered for weeks. Somehow, I didn't think it would work any better now.

"Edward?" I said quietly. He didn't turn, still guiding me toward the stairs, but I could see something dark and terrible in the side of his face. "I didn't mean to..." To what? Jump on that woman like a jackal? Make him regret teaching me how?

"I know," he said quickly, but in a way that made me think he only wanted me to stop talking.

I stopped moving, and he looked me in the face. "What is it?" he asked.

It was like there was a living creature behind his eyes. The clear amber seemed dark and alive. It was as if pulling something so good out of the woman had put something terrible into him.

I pressed my lips together as I felt them start to bob up and down. Even now, I had to fight back the urge to lick the rest of the blood off. Something had gone brittle inside me, threatening to fracture.

"Whoa, what did I miss?" someone was saying. I saw a vampire with short dark hair, red eyes slowly darkening at the sight of the blood on my face and clothes.

"Not now, Rolfe," Edward answered.

"The masters want you," Rolfe told him. "That means you've got to come."

I felt Edward nod against me. "Get Renata and I'll come. I think she's in the tower with the wives." Yes, Renata. Renata would be a relief.

Rolfe was shaking his head. "You're already keeping them waiting."

"She just butchered a human like she was a goddamned stuck pig," Edward said simply. "I am not leaving her alone. It's Caius's own orders that I not leave her alone."

"Fine," the man said reasonably, holding up two white, shining-clean hands. "I'll stay with the girl. We'll wait for you."

Edward's lip flexed. "Not in the audience chamber. Don't bring her in with us."

"Whatever you want. We'll stay outside."

I felt Edward nod, not looking at me. I wanted to go numb. I wanted _so badly_ to zone out and feel nothing, but that must have been part of being human. I didn't miss a thing. He didn't make a sound as we walked past the empty reception desk.

Edward looked over his shoulder at Rolfe as we approached the tall double doors. "Don't," he said, with a voice full of heat and bile.

"Don't what?" he asked.

Edward jabbed one finger at his temple. "Don't _anything_."

"Easy there," Rolfe said carefully. I couldn't blame him. _He_ hadn't done anything awful.

Edward took hold of one heavy handle and pulled it open. I could hear faint voices inside. "I'll come get you later," was all he said to me. The doors swung shut behind him.

Rejection washed through me, black and bitter. Worse, I knew I deserved it. I wouldn't want to know me either. I wouldn't want to see me or hear me or live in my skin.

I didn't care how childish I looked. I wrapped my arms around my legs and buried my head against my knees. I'd ended up this way after my first kill, in my cell. Back then at least I'd remembered to hold my breath. I hadn't even _tried_ this time. And things were only going to get worse.

At the edges of my senses, I felt Rolfe's shoes against the floor beside me. "Was it a human?" he asked. I really wanted to stay inside my own head for a while, but it seemed like he was trying to be nice. Weirdly enough after what had just happened, I felt like it wrong to just ignore him. I nodded.

Rolfe breathed in and out. "It wasn't Marta from accounting, was it? I liked her."

I shrugged. I didn't know her name. I hadn't known the other one's name either.

He produced a handkerchief from somewhere, tucking it against my hand. I took it and scrubbed hard at my face and hands. I wondered if I'd stain, like wine on a white countertop. God knew I felt anything but brand new. The handkerchief turned pink and started to wisp up like wet toilet paper, but Rolfe didn't say anything.

"Look, this isn't the first time somebody's gone after one of our humans when they cut themselves. Don't feel too bad about it. And it's not like you did it on purpose, right?"

I raised my head. I could feel my lower lip bobbing up and down again. Why couldn't Edward have said something like that? Why couldn't he have said _that_?

But at the same time, there was something off about it all. Rolfe was looking at me with a gentle, patient smile on his broad, smooth face, like a gym teacher trying to coax a band-aid onto a crying kid's skin-breaking broken leg.

Well I wanted it. Whatever it was he was offering, _really_ offering, it sounded like it would take this pain away, and I wanted it.

"Aw, come on now," he said, putting a hand on my arm and patting awkwardly. It felt good. It felt so good to have someone touch me without fear, like maybe I wasn't so terrible after all. "There's no need to cry. Nobody's mad at you." I closed my eyes against the sound of his voice. "I know you didn't get to finish, but there'll be a feast in a couple of days and Heidi will make sure you get a share."

The snarl built slowly this time, like a long strip of rawhide streaking toward its target. The next thing I knew, I was on my feet and Rolfe was springing back out of the way.

"Hey," he said, holding out both hands. "Don't get mad at me," he said. "I'm only trying to help."

Yes, that was the truth. He was trying to help. And, in a twisted way, in the Volterra way, this _was_ help.

But how could he see that I was this upset and be so wrong about why?

"Leave me alone," I said finally.

Rolfe shook his head. "I promised," he said. "And it's not allowed."

And with good reason. Look what had happened the last time I'd been alone. Closing my eyes, I sank back down against the wall.

Rolfe left me to my thoughts this time. I let my attention sink into the stone behind me. Whatever Aro and Caius had Edward doing, it wasn't making a lot of noise. I didn't think they were even talking in there. All that silence outside my head and all the noise in.

The minutes slipped by. Or hours. I couldn't tell and didn't care. I wished I could sleep and dream and wake up after my subconscious had sorted it all out.

Finally, the doors gave a creak and a heave, jerking me back into the world. Rolfe had looked up as well. I started to get up, but he held up a hand.

"Felix," came Caius's voice through the opening portal, "take her away."

I shivered as the bulky vampire walked past, but when I saw what was in his arms and smelled perfume and human sweat, I realized that "her" didn't mean me. I was on my feet in time for Aro and Caius walk past me, flanked by their guards.

I saw Aro look back, the light showing every crag of his face in profile, "Best to give him a moment, my dear ones," he said, and his eyes landed on me. "It isn't as if he does this every day."

I processed it all quickly. I hadn't seen Edward leave through these doors, and if he'd gone out the back way, he'd just have come straight back for me, wouldn't he?

_He doesn't do this every day..._ And Aro's gray-filmed eyes.

_Not every day..._ And Aro had looked at me.

I turned back toward the hallway. I couldn't see reception from here, but had Gianna been at her desk? The bones in my back felt strangely light. I asked myself what shoes Gianna had been wearing, whether they were the same ones I'd seen on the woman in Felix's arms. I asked myself if I could remember her scent.

But I didn't have to ask what her dearest hope was, why she'd come to work for the Volturi in the first place.

Had she gotten her wish today? Had Aro ordered Edward to do it? Of course he had, I realized. Edward had better control than every other vampire in Volterra put together, and today, _today_, I finally understood what that meant. If there was anyone who could bite a human and not kill, it was Edward.

I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth against the sudden wave of emotions. I felt a kinship with Gianna, the human girl who'd wanted to be a vampire, but at the same time I didn't want her to have her own version of my moment with Edward, especially not now that it looked like he'd never speak to me again.

I turned to look at Rolfe. He was still looking at me nervously, as if he didn't know what to do.

I took a deep breath and stepped gingerly into the feasting hall.

The scent of human blood filled my mind, but fainter than when the woman had cut her leg. It was as if most of it had already been drained away.

"So I've got to, uh..." Rolfe's voice came from behind me. Whatever had happened here, he didn't want to be anywhere near it. "I'll just... I'll go find Renata for you."

As I approached Edward, I could hear a funny sound, like ice crystals crunching under my feet, but with a wetter, chalkier tone. I noticed sickly that his head was lying at an awkward angle against the first steps of the dias. Then I remembered what Edward had said about neck strikes. Something about them being even worse than a fractured skull.

I crept up behind him as his bones continued to knit. The sound stopped, but he still didn't move.

"Edward?" I asked. "Edward, are you okay?"

He didn't make a sound.

I crouched down next to him, palms against the floor as I leaned in to get a better look.

His face wasn't slack and dead like I'd feared. His eyes were screwed shut, lips pursed like the moment he'd known that he'd provoked James into hunting us, and for a second, I forgot the blood still drying on my skin. I slid closer until I practically had his head on my knees.

I wasn't sure what to do next, so I pushed his hair out of his eyes, as lightly as I could, with one finger.

His head gave a jerk, as if my touch had stung him.

That was it. It should have been nothing, but it was everything. I couldn't take any more. The human's dead, staring eyes and the blackness in Edward's voice and the way he'd said goodbye now and the way he'd said goodbye in the woods last fall. The emotions were beating against me like waves against a cliff and any second now the rock would crack and whatever I was would fall into the sea. It was the end.

I could feel it building, rising up like a flood to drown me, some change, some splintering of my spirit to turn me into someone who could live like this. Any part of me with the will to fight it off was completely spent.

I wasn't even sure I didn't want it to happen.

Then, quick as a striking snake, Edward caught hold of my hand.

Slowly, like a man trying to steal a jewel from a sleeping dragon, he pulled my palm to the side of his face. He breathed in and then out again, mouth barely parting before he spoke.

"Don't leave me," he said.

He opened his eyes, staring at me through my fingers.

Dark, vivid red staring back at me through my fingers.

"Oh..." I mouthed.

His other hand joined the first, holding my wrist. "Bella, please don't leave me."

I didn't answer. What would I say?

"Is she dead?" I asked.

Edward nodded against my hand.

"Was it Gianna?" I asked, but he was already nodding again. I swallowed. "Nothing we can do about it now," I said, and it felt good, saying what I wished he'd said to me. "But I know you didn't do it on purpose, so the only thing left is..."

I trailed off.

...he'd looked away.

"Edward?" My insides felt strangely hollow. "You didn't kill her on purpose, Edward," I said.

"Not ...entirely," he told me.

I stared down at him, not sure what I was seeing. Eyes, nose, jawline all became just a collection of shapes.

"I— I don't really know," he said. "Maybe I did."

"No you didn't," I said, but even I could hear the throb building in my voice. "Of course you didn't. How could you think that you did?" I demanded, my words echoing off the arched ceiling.

I saw his jaw flex as he grit his teeth, lip twisting. "Because I hate her," he said in a low snarl.

"Edward, that was Gianna," I half-shouted at him. "She never did anything to us; she just worked here. She wasn't so different from—"

"Don't compare yourself to her." His words came in a dark hiss.

I went quiet at that. How was that girl different from me, really? She was prettier. She was older. Perhaps Edward had seen something in her thoughts that he hand't seen in mine, because she wasn't a mental defective.

"Don't think for a second that you're anything like her. _She_ isn't—"

A monster. A killer. A stone around his neck.

"—_good_. There's nothing good in her, Bella. And I hate her for it."

I had no idea what he was talking about. I knew today that I wasn't good, and Gianna wasn't bad.

"Like today," he said, wedging an arm behind himself until he was half sitting up. "Bella, I could tell you didn't mean it; I didn't need to hear your thoughts to see that you were eating yourself alive, and I hated that I couldn't do anything about it. It was like lead in my heart that I couldn't do anything about it."

I felt my hands fall back to my sides, light as leaves as he rose up to his knees beside me.

"But the pain you're feeling is a good thing. It means that you _can_ feel guilt," he said. "_None_ of them do," he said, pointing where the others had gone. "And neither did she."

"But you killed her?" I asked in a small voice.

"I never would have gone looking to harm her," he said like a promise. "I used to kill people whom I thought did not deserve to live—you know that—but those days are long behind me. But when I was..." he trailed off, closing his eyes. "I'm not sure that I could have made myself stop. All I know is that I didn't." His eyes on me were dark. "I'm not proud of it, but I can't make myself say that the world is poorer."

I was quiet. Everything finally felt quiet.

"So you're not..." my words stopped. I licked my lips, twitching hard at the taste on them. "You're not... you're not angry?"

He seemed confused, "What, at you?"

I nodded tightly.

He put his hands on either side of my face. "_No_," he said, looking me square in the eye. _Everyone_ lapses, Bella, especially when we're new," he was saying. "It's happened to Esme. It's happened to Emmett and Alice. It is an unavoidable part of being what we are."

With my new eyes, I could see the way his lower lip tensed. I knew him well enough and had been watching closely enough to know that was what he did when he lied. It did bother him, what I'd done. But that didn't matter, not today. The important part was that he'd said it, and that meant that he wasn't angry all the way through. After all, he must have felt this way about Alice once, when she'd done it. I could see it now, in my mind. Edward would have been free then. He could have just left Alice with Jasper or Esme and gone off by himself until he could look her in the eye again. He'd have hidden his feelings until he'd mastered them. Except now, in Volterra, he had to either stay with me himself or leave me with someone like Rolfe.

In a way, it was almost good. Of all the things to make Edward disappointed in me, _actually_ killing someone wasn't such a low threshold. Maybe it meant that Volterra hadn't gotten to him yet.

I didn't say anything for a while, and he sank back down beside me, resting his head against my knees. I reached out to ...I don't know, stroke his hair or whatever, but there was still something that didn't feel quite finished, something he'd said, and I couldn't put my finger on what it was.

_...unavoidable._ The air felt cold in my throat. It felt like a wet November wind all the way down to the pit of my stomach, making everything so clear.

My human memories were dim, but my mind was sharp. I could put the pieces together. I could see Jasper at my eighteenth birthday party. I could see my memory of Edward in the woods, telling me that he no longer loved me.

And his lip had tensed up.

He'd lied.

"That's why you left Forks," I breathed.

I could hear him pull the breath into his body and push it out again. "Yes," he said, not opening his eyes.

I felt like a sooty fog was breaking up, rolling away to let the light come through. The words were stuck in my chest, like moths beating against a screen, and I wasn't sure if I should let them out. In the end...

"So you did love me."

He looked up at me then, dark broken-garnet red so clear that I could see all the way through him, but he looked away. "Very much," he said.

I turned away, licking my lips. My hand found the side of his face again. I felt his eyes close against my touch. He had loved me. He'd only left to save me from a terrible fate that I'd been unable to understand until today. And even if Volterra had killed it, I would always know that he had loved me, very much.

"I am sorry that I failed you, Bella," he whispered into my fingers. "Please don't leave me."  
"Okay," I murmured back. "I won't."

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END OF PART ONE.

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	24. Part II: Ch 23 Foundation

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is a fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

*ahem* I had planned a long author's note to explain the delay in this chapter but I found that my feelings on this matter could only be properly expressed through dance. Bear with me...

(The music starts and a Russian-style ballet chorale steps apace to Tchaikovsky's "Everyday Indecision" and then an elegant modern version of Copeland's "NaNoWriMo November.")

(The chorale shifts to interpretive as the music changes abruptly to "Computer Crash" by minimalist composer Philip Glass with a segue into his celebrated "And the Geek Squad Erased the 18,000 NaNo Words on Your Hard Drive.")

(The music changes again to Andrew Lloyd Webber's over-the-top "Finally, a Job! ...It Needs a Month of Preparation" complete with original ribbon-dancing.)

(The chorale then dons forties professional wear and does an interpretation of "Gainful Employment Is More Tiring Than I Remember," from _Sweet Charity_.)

(Scenery takes on Manhattan 1989 as the orchestra hammers out "Fever, Chills, the Flu!" from _Rent_.)

(The finale is an acrobatic rendition of "Adventures in Competitive Puking" from recent cult classic _Repo: A Genetic Opera_.)

(The company comes back for an encore with "Wait, _NOW_ FFnet Has an Error?")

So that's 68,000 words of NaNo, over 74,000 words of job prep in December, three weeks of job itself (which is now continuing part-time) in January, finally two different stages/cases of the flu and finally a glitch in FFnet that prevented me from uploading this chapter when it was first ready on March 23. Special thanks for Acier Glace for telling me how to sidestep the problem. It's a shame. November to January is peak sparklepire season. All the cold weather makes the little dudes rev up like firecrackers and the all hop right into the vampire nets like bunnies on acid. (And YES, I made up the song titles. The composers and long-form works are all real, though.)

I'd had a few different drafts of a twenty-third chapter set up even in November, but I didn't figure out what arc I wanted to cover with part two until the middle of February 2011. I hope you'll find it worth the wait, and if I may be so bold, _MWWAAA HA HAA HAA HA!_

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"I began to plot." –Edward , _Midnight Sun_

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This was officially the creepiest room I'd ever been in.

It wasn't the feeling that we were too high up, or the way the windows seemed filmed like mirror glass or the sense that those cracks in the walls hadn't been there before World War Two. This whole place could have looked exactly like my Grandma Swan's kitchen and it still would have been the creepiest room I'd ever been in.

But maybe not if it had _smelled_ like Gran's kitchen. The air in here was cloying, like that perfume that dentists added to the knockout gas right before they put their patients under, but there was also an underlying feeling of honey left out too long. The overconcentrated scent of vampire.

"Can they ...talk?" I asked.

One of them turned its neck. I expected it to make a sound, grating like rock or creaking like old hinges, but nothing reached my ears. She said something in Italian to the other one. Or was it Latin? It didn't sound like anything Edward had been teaching me, but she didn't seem happy.

"Treat the wives with respect," Renata hissed quietly.

I nodded, more to myself than to anyone else. After all, I had a job to do.

_"We have a role to play here, Bella_,_"_ he'd said to me. _"We do not want the Volturi for enemies. If we become too troublesome, Aro will get rid of us, and not by letting us go."_

And it wasn't their fault that they were all cragged and weird-looking …unless it was. Edward hadn't said why they or Aro or Caius were like that. No one had. I hadn't figured out how to ask yet.

I tried to ignore how my marble skin felt like it was going to crawl right off my body and watched the first one turn back to me. I twitched, just a fraction of a hair, but I was sure at least Renata noticed. That was the other side of having a vampire's senses: all the other vampires did too.

The tower room was large and almost perfectly round. What little furniture there was sported fine, recent finishing or upholstery. Two well-appointed canopy beds dominated the far side, and I could see the back of what looked like a painter's easel set up near one window. On the floor nearby was an old-fashioned chest that looked like it should have been holding pirate treasure. The whole place was conspicuously free of dust. Air hissed in and out through vents in the ceiling and near the floor.

It was more like an old lady's attic than a chamber for a pair of queens, but then the wives didn't look very queenly. Their hair was thick but brittle, standing out from their skulls in wisps. I couldn't tell if it was faded from blond or just yellowed white like old newspaper.

The one who'd spoken seemed to be in charge, so I focused on her. The other one was half a head taller, but the first one seemed less out of it. I still wasn't sure the tall one really knew I was here.

The first wife's cheeks were high and round. Going by the shape of her face alone, I wouldn't have put her past twenty-five, but instead of smooth marble, her skin was rough like a layered rock that had been out in the weather, soft spots eaten away to show the crags hiding underneath. Her eyes seemed to move back and forth from behind a gray, scummy soap bubble, turning them a sort of dusky pink. It should have made them seem gentle but it didn't. Blood in the bathwater.

_So this is what vampires look like when they get old_, I thought. And to think I'd been worried about crow's feet and varicose veins. It made me think about Alice and Jasper, growing rocky together holding hands, but that made my heart ache. There were too many pains there.

She spoke again, not seeming to address anyone in particular this time. The tone of her voice was flat, full of boredom, disapproval or a mix. Renata answered, gesturing to me with one hand. I looked back and forth, feeling like a tourist watching her cabbie try to talk his way out of a traffic ticket.

The tall one moved, twisting her head toward her companion as she spoke again. Two scummed red irises pointed toward me through their spun-gray shell.

The first one shook her head and answered in sudden and almost accentless English. "They all dress this way now, Athenodora. It means nothing."

I half-expected Renata to roll her eyes or give an offended sniff. She'd been the one to pick out my clothes, after all. It was what Alice would have done. But she didn't twitch an eyelash.

The woman's voice had been nice enough, almost chillingly normal, but with a strange hollowness to it, like she were a flute. Smooth and pretty, but empty inside. All her reediness had been worn away. I guessed it was rude to stare. I guessed she was used to it.

"If he wants her, let him have her," the woman said again, though I wasn't sure to whom. I didn't like it. It was like Marcus in the audience chamber again. Like I were something to be handed out by other people to other people.

I blinked and found that she was already across the room, looking out the window by the easel. I found that I'd moved as well—away. I hadn't expected her to get up so quickly. Somehow, I'd thought she wouldn't be able to move properly. I wondered if she could even see all the way to the ground. She moved again, and the cloth was in her hands, probably the exact same one that Renata had fussily ironed and brought up here this morning. You'd think they'd just let Renata give it to me herself, but they liked their rituals, their little shows of power here in Volterra.

The wife held out her arm, ripples of strange, light-sucking fabric falling like water toward the floor.

Novices in convents wore white habits. Mine was cloud-gray.

Renata's fingers twitched. I imagined she wanted to mime her original set of instructions back in the reading room. _"Take the cloak with both hands, then back away. Don't take your eyes off her."_ Much as it annoyed me, I did exactly as I was told.

Just as instructed, I let the wife look away first. She settled down again, next to the easel. Her movements were as graceful as Esme's, almost as graceful as Alice's, but when she was still, she looked like she couldn't move at all.

Renata's pinched fingers gave a microscopic tug on the edge of my bodice. I quietly turned and followed her out of the room.

"Thank God that's over," I said after the door had closed behind us and we were starting down the spiral stairs.

"You're going back," Renata said with a hint of an edge to her voice. I was beginning to think that she wasn't as afraid of me now. Oh well. "We all go back. Some of the girls come in here every day to clean and take care of the wives. We take turns, and you're going to have a share of this now that you've got your cloak."

"Just girls?" I asked, Renee's voice in my head telling me that boys weren't too good to load the dishwasher.

Renata nodded. "They don't like males coming up here. Old-fashioned," she said, smiling.

"Of course," I said, smiling back. "Old-fashioned."

That was her go-to excuse, I'd learned, the clothes, the paternalistic talk, the creepy fighting in the hallways. The Volturi weren't chauvanistic, medival, barbaric or evil; they were _old-fashioned_.

"Wait," I said, frowning. "The wives don't like men coming to the tower or the masters don't?"

Renata paused, eyes blank, mouth a little open. I watched her face closely. Was this a woman wondering how to answer because she'd never thought of it before or because she had to come up with a lie?

"Do they sleep?" I asked, putting this line of conversation out of its misery. "The wives, I mean."

"No," said Renata, her smooth eyebrows cinching together in a seamless vampire frown. "Why would they?"

"Why else would there be two beds in their room?" I asked. No one else in the compound made any pretense of sleeping or eating the way the Cullens had. Except for just now, I hadn't seen a bed since I'd arrived here.

"Well, because—" Renata's smile broke off. Her head tilted to the side, as if she'd just realized that I'd said something terribly odd. "You really don't know?"

I shook my head. "What would I know?" I asked.

Renata turned her head forward and pressed her lips shut.

"Renata," I said in as mildly scolding a tone as I could manage. I hated it when she got like this. This wasn't a real Volturi secret; she could tell me if she'd just open her mouth, and I'd learned how to press her for information.

She looked at me and then away. "They're for, ah…" she made a funny gesture with her hand, as if trying to wave this whole conversation along. "They're for when one of the masters comes to visit."

Well that made no sense and I opened my mouth to say so. Aro, Caius and Marcus didn't sleep either, so what would they need with—

Oh.

I found myself suddenly much less annoyed with avoiding eye contact. No wonder Renata hadn't wanted to talk about it. It was goddamned disgusting.

"The masters are great men," she recited, "and the wives are great women. And we try to give them their privacy."

I nodded mechanically. Privacy, yup. Couldn't give them enough of that.

And around here it was damned hard to come by.

Once they'd decided that I no longer needed to be locked up, I'd half-expected to be assigned quarters or a room somewhere. This place had certainly seemed big enough to me at the time, before I'd had a real mental map of all the counterintuitive twists of the hallways and basement levels, but aside from the wives and masters, no one here had a whole room to themselves.

There were a few amenities. Movies and television were popular but usually shared activities. Back in the sixties and again in the nineties, the masters had insisted that everyone learn enough about new popular culture—movies, the Internet, cell phones—to be able to blend in with the humans. This, though, was an area in which nomads didn't usually need the same level of precision as vampires who lived in the human world, and, from what I'd picked up, most of these vampires had been nomads before joining the Volturi rather than coming straight from human life like I had. Most of the Volturi had already been used to not having a home with four walls or more possessions than could fit in a pocket.

Sure, I didn't need to sleep any more, but I missed not having a place to put things down or to think of as my own space. I thought back to my tiny closet of a bedroom back at Charlie's with the purple bedspread and the geriatric computer. I wondered how long he'd leave everything as it was before giving my things to Goodwill. Never, I figured. The man who still had a picture on the wall of his ex-wife of seventeen years would never touch his missing daughter's bedroom, not except to go through it for clues. The closet, the bedspread, the stacks of schoolbooks. They'd stay there as a monument to me ...a monument that would never get dusted.

Of all things, I wondered if Charlie was eating right. I'd cleaned the unidentifiable muck out of his fridge when I'd moved in. I knew he didn't know how to cook... He would probably go back to his diet of takeout and fried river fish and die of a heart attack or mercury poisoning.

God, what was the use? It wasn't as if I could go back to Forks and start doing the grocery shopping again. Even if I didn't lose control and kill him, one of Jake's friends would get me before I could explain who I was.

I closed my eyes against the memory of Quil and Embry mock-wrestling against the rusted backdrop of my truck, and I tried to picture them as they must have looked to Laurant, massive and terrible. As a human, I'd had to worry about Jasper and even Edward. Now... Maybe it was my fate to always be at risk of dying at the hands of someone I loved.

I shook my head as we rounded the stairs down toward the rest of the compound. I'd save the memories for when I needed them. There was no sense torturing myself in the meantime.

"So," I started in my best change-the-subject voice, "anything go on downstairs today?"

"Oh don't get me started," Renata said, shaking her head. She'd picked up the expression from me, a bit of Renee and her teacher friends brought to Volterra by way of Forks. "Adrienne has been here for over fifty years and she _still_ doesn't know to never touch Heidi's disguises. What was the word again?"

"Bogarting," I told her.

"'Bogarting...'" she trailed off. "From the actor, right?"

I nodded. I wasn't even sure if _I_ was using the word correctly. It was a little bit before my time, but Renata didn't know that. She lapped up all this what-the-cool-kids-are-doing-now stuff.

The poor thing didn't stand a chance, even without the new-toy mojo I'd "enjoyed" back in Forks. If I'd ever paid Lauren Mallory this kind of attention, that backstabbing bitch would have been my friend for life. Or maybe not. I was new to this whole manipulating people bit. Pretty much the only time I'd tried it was getting Jacob to tell me those werewolf stories that day on the beach. My memories of that attempt were so full of blushing awkwardness that I tended to forget that it had worked and Jacob had told me everything he knew.

It wasn't as hard this time. It had taken me a full week after Edward's collapse in the feasting hall to figure out that Renata was starved for girl talk. She didn't seem to get along with any of the other female vampires here, and I didn't think she understood why not. It was actually kind of sad.

Even as Renata rattled out the latest secondhand details of a catfight in the supply room, I had to wonder if she was playing me. Even though I couldn't think of any reason why she might want to—or might be ordered to—sabotage me, I didn't know anyone here well enough to be sure.

Well that was going to change. I didn't know if Renata was afraid of the other girl vampires or if they just thought she was annoying, but I was going to find out sooner or later. I was going to find everything out.

"So does Adrienne have a habit of taking Heidi's things?"

Renata shrugged. "We all do now and again. Adrienne's just the worst. But there was that time just after you got here when she accused Heidi of stealing her comb right out of her pocket. Rolfe tried to butt in and say that maybe Adrienne had just lost it, but even I could have told him that that would only make things worse... Eventually he and Afton had to run and find Chelsea before they ripped each other's eyes out."

"Now which one is Chelsea again?" I asked. This did not come naturally to me, and the sound of my voice, just like all the gossipmongering froths that I'd avoided my freshman and sophomore years of high school, made me feel like my throat was lined with cough medicine gone gummy.

"Brown hair, bit of a square jaw, mated to Afton," she recited.

It couldn't hurt, I reminded myself. It could not hurt to have Volturi gossip taking up its tiny specks of space in my enormous mind.

"And how did she break up the fight?" I asked, remembering the joke about the zombie and the farmer's daughter that Mike Newton had told right when Jessica had been about to rearrange Lauren's front teeth with a pair of cafeteria tongs. The two of them had just stared at him for a full minute, enough for Ben and Angela to drag them apart. Mike was a better person than I'd given him credit for. It was amazing what a few thousand miles could do for my opinion of a guy.

"Oh she just did it," said Renata. "That's what she does."

"Her presence calms people down?" I asked, thinking of Jasper. If I ever felt someone rev me up or calm me down, I'd know to look around for a square-jawed, brown-haired, Afton-nagging vampire named Chelsea.

"Something like that," said Renata. "I never asked the details but I've been out with her when we go after renegade covens. She makes it harder for them to work together against us. It's hard to explain, but I'm sure you'll see it yourself one day."

I smiled, but couldn't quite manage it. Edward had said that Caius would want to know how I would do in the field, and that it would probably be before my first year was up. The more stable I acted, the more freedom they gave me within the compound, but the more likely it was that they'd give me non-freedom outside of it. I didn't like to think about it, but there it was.

...fortunately, I thought with a smile as I tasted honey and sun in the stale air, fortunately, I didn't have to think about it.

He'd said he'd be waiting for me on the landing. I stopped but Renata didn't, my marble smile going motionless on my face as her shoes clicked past me on the stair. I recovered and caught up, but I was sure she noticed.

He _had_ been here, and not long ago... I stopped breathing, on purpose this time. Without the smooth rushing sound of air in my deadened lungs, I listened.

_Oh not again_, I thought.

Renata looked at me, shaking her head, but at least she looked like she thought the situation was serious. God damn her if she smiled and said "old fashioned" again.

I flexed my fingers around the bundle in my hands. I hadn't planned to wear it right away, though I'd known Edward would disapprove of waiting, but under the circumstances...

I hurried down the steps, taking them three at a time, all the while throwing the cloak over my shoulders and fumbling for the ties. Even now, my knee-jerk reaction was to hold onto the handrail or else break my neck, but my feet didn't miss a step and neither did my fingers. I reached the second floor and the cloak settled down around my legs as perfectly as if I were a model turning at the end of some runway in Milan and then I was off again toward the sound.

"Outside the library," Renata muttered in my ear. She hadn't been far behind, then. I just nodded. She knew the compound better than I did.

Felix. It had to be Felix. If it had been anyone else, it would have been over by now. Except for that one night when Byron and two of his friends had cornered Edward outside the lobby, Felix was the only one who took his time.

I skidded to a stop at the edge of the gray-cloaked crowd clogging the hallway ...if I could call it skidding. I didn't need to wheel my arms or even bend my knees to keep my balance.

"What's going on?" Renata asked a dark-haired vampire whose name I didn't know.

"The new boy," was all she said back. Then she shook her head and murmured something else in what was probably French. I could pick out the words for "human" and "fool." I scanned the crowd, looking for jaws, noses, any pieces of face visible outside the cloaks and hoods. I saw Heidi on the far side, Randall and another vampire whom I'd seen in the library but whose name I didn't know.

I held in a growl as I realized what must have happened. Edward would have been waiting for Renata and me on the landing, alone. It didn't usually start when there were witnesses. They showed up after.

Over the past few weeks, Edward would come to see me with a shoulder held too stiffly or a limb that wouldn't bend and a pigheaded refusal to tell me what was going on. Once I began to get more freedom to walk around the compound, I figured it out. He was a moving target.

It hadn't been like the fight with Byron the day he'd gotten back from Budapest. It hadn't been a fight at all. Renata and I had been walking down the hall toward the library and Edward had come out of the stairwell. I hadn't expected to see him. I also hadn't expected Afton and Rolfe to grab him by the arms while Randall landed a series of punches to his face and midsection.

He hadn't even tried to stop them.

It had been over after less than a minute, and they'd walked away. I'd been too surprised to move, to do anything. Renata had given her same smile and said, "They always do that with the new ones." I'd recovered myself just in time to shape the words "old-fashioned" as they came out of her mouth.

Edward had picked himself up from where he'd slid to the floor and started brushing off his clothes. I was sure he'd known I was there, and I was sure he'd wished I hadn't been.

Edward had finally admitted that it was some kind of Volturi hazing and that he was swallowing double rations of it because he was a pig-eating outsider and because he hadn't joined up willingly. It made sense from a sickly objective standpoint. The psychology books I'd been reading quoted studies that theorized that hazing brought on a kind of low-level Stockholm syndrome, that it was a way of bringing new members into the group on an instinctive level. That had helped me understand. What it hadn't done was make any of it a single bit less disturbing.

But as the weeks went past, it let up. As far as I knew, Rolfe had only been involved in that one attack, and Demetri hadn't done any. Byron kept it up longer than most, but recently even he seemed to have lost interest or gotten it out of his system. Maybe they'd learned that Edward wouldn't break. Maybe they figured he was already broken.

Felix was the main holdout. I didn't know what Edward had done to piss him off, but I could see that something was seriously wrong with that son of a bitch.

What I couldn't do was see what was happening. I gave the woman in front of me a shove and she elbowed me back hard without even turning around. I could hear the swish of Renata's hood as she shook her head. I felt a low growl in my throat. I didn't need her disapproval right now.

I heard a heavy grunt that was probably Edward and an appreciative murmur from at least five male voices. Felix was getting his digs in. I all but snapped my fingers in agitation, swaying left and right like a cobra with no luck. What was happening?

This wasn't the first time, but they were never exactly the same. Felix always chose tight corners, and Edward said he was getting better at fighting on impulse. Edward's speed couldn't help him and his gift gave him less of an advantage each time.

"What did he do this time?" Renata asked the dark-haired vampire.

"Bumped into him," I heard her respond.

A small hiss escaped between my teeth. Edward didn't bump into people. Come to think of it, I'd never known any vampire to bump into anyone, not by accident, and Edward knew better than to provoke Felix deliberately. If anyone did the bumping, it was Felix, for an excuse.

Not that he needed one, I noticed as I took in the crowd. They were hanging back. It was some informal Volterra-code that you didn't jump into a fight between two males. Three-man fights and women were different, but one-on-one guy-on-guy meant jumping in just wasn't done. There were a fair amount of teeth being gnashed and hands opening and closing, reflexes from a group of vampires trained as fighters. I listened carefully. Edward had said that the hazing would change things, that the other vampires here would feel less hostile toward him once it was over, but all the half-growled snarls and hisses sounded the same. If any of these people favored Edward over Felix, I couldn't tell. Apparently, being glued to Aro's right hand didn't come with any special privileges, such as exemption from daily rounds as Felix's punching bag.

But that was how things worked here. That was what I was picking up from the other vampires here ...and discreetly prying out of Renata. Fights—at least this kind of fight—happened all the time.

There was a heavy sound of marble-metal on stone and the wall on my right vibrated like a tuning fork.

"That thing is load-bearing, you idiots!" I heard a strong, silken female voice shout. Heidi.

_Please, you evil bitch, just tell them to stop it_, I wished silently. If Heidi could use her voice to lure humans in to the buffet, then couldn't she use it to keep Felix from bashing Edward's face in and bringing the roof down on our heads for good measure?

"All the soundproofing in the world won't keep the public from noticing if the east wall collapses, Felix!" she called out again.

There was that growl again, that thick, impossible growl that still made me shiver, but Heidi was more used to it than I was. I heard another thud and a muffled curse, and then the sound of palms on shoulders and thick feet stomping as that mountain of a vampire moved away. I saw the side of his face as he pushed past me. I'd expected him to look sullen, like a child told not to play rough in the house, but there was a dark calmness to him that made me very, very worried.

I ducked to the side of the hallway as the crowd broke up, noticing that Renata was still at my elbow.

"I think he's starting to like you," I overheard from somewhere near the far wall.

"Don't joke with me Rolfe," Edward answered, his slowly uncrumpling form becoming visible through the dispersing sea of gray bodies.

"No no no, he went for the elbow this time. He's been going knee for the past week. I've been making this chart..."

Edward sat up slowly, giving Rolfe an annoyed look. There was dust on his head and his hair had gone flat, probably where Felix had ground his skull into the floor. I could see just enough of Rolfe's face to tell that he was almost laughing. "At least someone's amused by all this," said Edward.

"Well it was rather balletic when he pitched you down the stairwell. You two didn't practice that or anything, did you?"

"Sure," Edward answered. "I go through this twice each time, just for your amusement."

"Well it shows. I appreciate it."

"Edward," I said, interrupting.

He looked up at me. He'd already known I was there; he had to have known, but sometimes he liked to pretend he didn't. He looked away, closed his eyes and I could see him pulling each muscle into place until he gave me his new smile, his Volterra smile, small and subdued. "I see your interview with the wives went well," he said as he got to his feet and nodded toward the cloak around my shoulders.

"Edward, your arm." I didn't want chitchat about those gravelly old hags now, not when there was something that actually mattered going on.

"Here," said Rolfe, "I'm pretty good at this."

"Ah, thank you," Edward said tightly as Rolfe picked up the one white, perfect chunk just the size of Felix's jaws and carefully lined it up with the wound, like he was completing some jigsaw pizzle made of nitroglycerin.

I hated to watch this. I hated the sound these fights made. I hated the excitement that rose in my guts every time I saw one. I even hated seeing Edward put himself back together like he was some earthworm or starfish that could grow new limbs. I tried not to picture him after a year of this, all patchwork down his arms and legs.

Edward had spent months telling me how very far from human he was, but I still hated to see it.

"How's that?"

"It feels all right," Edward answered.

I opened my eyes in time to watch Rolfe nod, "Renata," he said, still sounding nothing worse than amused, "what do you think of our friend here's performance today?"

She mumbled something about not having seen much. Renata reminded me of an eleven-year-old girl asked to talk by her grandfather, chin tucked tight against her chest. What reason did she have to be frightened?

"She never does," Rolfe said to Edward. "Hey, have you thought about what I said?"

"I have," Edward answered, one hand still rubbing against his newly reattached chunk of tricep. "I still think you should ask her yourself."

"Of course I am. But what's she going to say?"

"Rolfe," Edward said with gentle warning.

"Not even a hint?" he asked. Rolfe shook his head, making a sound of disapproval. "You're hogging all the fun, you know."

Edward turned his eyes meaningfully toward the dent he'd left in the wall. "I think I have a realistic concept of that, yes," he answered.

Rolfe laughed loudly and gave Edward a slap on the back. "I've got to get back to work," he said. "We'll talk again later." Edward nodded as Rolfe walked away.

"What did he want?" I asked, honestly curious.

Edward rolled his eyes, but I could hear the old Victorian form coming through in his voice. "He wants to know how Adrienne would respond if he began to court her attention."

Behind me, I heard Renata giggle and cover her mouth with her hands.

Edward met Renata's eyes, "I know," he said. "I don't have the heart to tell him."

"Tell him what?" I asked.

"That she'd sooner kiss a pig," Renata answered from behind me. "Her words," she added.

"You see?" said Edward. "He should have asked you instead of me." He shook his head. "Honestly, it's like being back in high school. At least the football players know how to write 'Do you like me?' on a note and stick it in someone's locker."

"Well if the halfback knew that the head of the foreign language club could read the cheerleaders' minds, he might just change his tactics," I said. The image in my head was funny, though. I pictured the mildly creepy, joking Rolfe sitting across a candlelit café table from the significantly more creepy, sneering Adrienne. I supposed Rolfe wasn't looking for anything but good looks. Adrienne certainly didn't have anything else going for her.

"I'd been going to come and wait for you," Edward said.

"I know," I answered, tapping my nose with my finger. He nodded. We'd been working on that, filtering out all the overload so that I could make use of my new senses. Too bad the bad guys all had superpowers too.

"I've got some things to take care of," Renata said simply. "How about I meet you at the reading room later?" she asked. God bless her annoying ass, but she could figure out when she wasn't wanted. I'd figured out that Renata could take being blown off if it was Edward. Maybe he'd dazzled her too, or maybe she just liked to think she was being useful, giving the young lovers time alone together. As bloodsucking monsters went, Renata wasn't so bad. I muttered a thank-you and she finally left.

"So you're not going to tell me how it went?" he asked.

"You already know," I reminded him. Renata probably hadn't been thinking of much else, even during the fight.

"Yes, but I like to hear you say it," he told me.

I licked my lips, trying to find a way from having to answer.

Edward smiled, tilting his head back. "If you pin me six times in one hour, I'll stop asking," he told me, "but if we get through combat practice without you beating me once, you must tell me everything I wish to know."

I smiled, more surprised at the playfulness in his voice than anything else. "You haven't had enough fighting for one day?" I asked.

He shrugged. "You need to practice and I want you to tell me what happened at your meeting. Are we agreed?"

I nodded, too glad to see Edward acting normal to do anything else.

Edward held out his arm and I took it. It had taken me a while to understand what that gesture had meant. I'd read about it in Jane Austen novels, men and women walking with the woman seemingly literally leaning on the man's arm. The first time, Edward had stood there for a full thirty seconds before closing his eyes and explaining what he wanted. I'd reached out and he'd tucked my hand into the crook of his arm. "Shall we go?" he'd asked me then. Since then, that had been our modus operandi A slow pace, close enough for our bodies to touch but not actually doing so, separated by a simple wall of formality. I didn't know why he liked to do it. My new mind had cooked up a million guesses and no ways of telling which one was right.

I hadn't asked him about it. It was number eighty-nine on my list of weird things about Volterra, and I was still working on six.

Speaking of which... "You could have done that yourself," I said, touching his arm.

Edward looked down at my hands then sidelong back at my face. "What do you mean?" he asked. I looked for the tugging at the corners of his mouth. Nothing, none of the sly sass that I'd hoped to see. But his lower lip had tensed up again.

"I think you know what I mean," I told him.

"How can you always tell?" He did smile this time, something almost like his real one. I felt my insides perk up. There was my Edward.

I shrugged, knowing he would never press a lady for her small secrets so long as she did him the courtesy of pretending to be a lady. From time to time, I wondered if I should tip him off about his little tell, but for now I needed my BS detector too much. Maybe once I learned some other tricks. "Well are you going to tell me what you were doing or not?" I asked.

"Fair enough," he said, turning his head to look down the hall where Rolfe had gone. His eyes went out of focus the tiniest bit. He was listening, I'd figured out, checking people's thoughts to see if anyone could overhear us. "If you want to make friends, Bella—" his smile dropped and he followed up with "—and don't look at me like that. You know we have to make friends, at least after a fashion."

I nodded. It was easier that way.

"If you want to make the kind of friends we're going to need, don't start by doing them favors," he said. "I've been watching people a long time, Bella. There wasn't much else to do after my fifth time through high school. If you're at a disadvantage in a new place, you should never start by trying to help other people. If they don't really need what you have to offer, they'll see it as weakness. If they do need you, they'll just resent it. Start by letting _them_ help _you_."

I stared at him blankly, trying to process this. I'd been invisible in middle school, neither popular nor an outcast, and my strange notoriety in Forks had come to me without my doing anything to get it.

"People don't want to think that they owe you something, Bella," he explained. "If I want Rolfe to feel comfortable around me, I have to let him think that _I_ owe _him_ but not so much that he'd call it in for more than I'd be willing to pay. Small favors, just enough to make me seem like less of a threat."

I found my gaze drifting to the floor. Small favors... I remembered the pretty girls braiding each other's hair in the cafeteria back at my old school in Phoenix. I remembered watching the football team practice... Well, I hadn't been able to tell much of what had been going on, not for all Charlie's attempts to explain it, but sure, why not? They'd probably been doing it too.

"Small favors," I repeated, licking my lips and wondering if Edward was right. How could I use this? Never mind, I would find a way. Perhaps... Wait, I'd assumed that I was doing Renata a favor by giving her someone to talk to. Did she think she was helping me by giving me the compound gossip? I ran through the past few days of conversations with her in my head. Yes... yes she just might. So far so good, then.

I blinked, suddenly remembering Jessica Stanley my first day at Forks High. She'd told me everything she knew about other students, the Cullens... Then she'd steered me toward the spot next to her on the cafeteria table bench and I'd followed her lead without even thinking about it. I'd been the shiny new girl, and Jessica had found a way to be only two feet from the center of all that attention. And it hadn't been mean of her; even at the time I'd been able to see that she was trying to be nice.

And Jacob! I'd done the same thing then, gotten him to trust me by asking for his help—and we'd become friends, _real_ friends, whatever mistakes I'd made later. Was _that_ how all of this worked?

"We're going to be in Volterra for a long time, Bella," he said, misinterpreting my silence.

"I know," I recited.

"I'm laying the foundation. Eventually, all this will pay off."

"I know."

He pulled a breath in and pushed it out again. He still sounded a little shaky. The fight had unsettled him more than he wanted me to notice. But I did. I always would.

"So why Rolfe?" I asked.

Edward shrugged. "He took an interest, I suppose. He watched a little too much _Star Trek_ back in the nineties and thinks being able to read minds looks like fun."

I smiled. "Well it does sometimes."

Edward shot me an exasperated look. "Can I help it if you make it look easy?" I asked. "So doesn't Rolfe have a gift of his own or does he just think yours is better?" I said, changing the subject.

Edward shook his head. "I don't think so. He's a good fighter and finds it a little easier to live with other vampires than the rest of them do, but I wouldn't say that's a gift."

"Any news today?" I asked.

"Nothing good," Edward told me. "China has sent its navy into the Gulf of Aiden to fight pirates."

"Well …that's good, isn't it?"

Edward gave a sideways shrug. "Aro thinks the pirates might be an excuse. They're also expanding into the Indian Ocean in general, moving in to control lines of communication there. It's not overtly threatening, but other countries in the area are starting to choose sides—India is the other rallying point. There's also talk of reunification with Taiwan."

I nodded. We'd talked about Taiwan.

"Aro had seen things like this happen before," Edward explained. "They don't always come to anything, but it's worth keeping an eye on."

And now he had Edward's eyes. He still wanted Alice's. I noticed that Edward never talked about Alice. I guessed that he tried not to think about her, but I did, all the time.

"What else happened?" I asked.

He opened his mouth but didn't say anything. Damn him. I could see it behind the tension in his neck, feel it in the incomplete stillness of his fingers on my arm.

"We agreed," I insisted, "no secrets." If he couldn't keep secrets from Aro, then he would not keep them from me. "How can I be ready for things if you don't tell me when you see them coming?"

He closed his eyes. He knew I was right. It had been his idea, after all. My mind flipped through the possibilities. Was Caius going to send me out to shred other vampires with Jane and Alec? My insides went cold. Was it something to do with Carlisle, Alice and Esme? Edward had said that Carlisle had been here, and that it hadn't gone well.

"Aro's picked out a new ...candidate," he said. "Someone from legal." Edward's breath started to come faster, and he said, "Bella, I don't know if I can—"

I put my hands on his shoulders, looking him in the eye. "We'll think of something," I told him. I could see doubts swimming around in his eyes, along with what was left of Gianna. "You have to let me help you, Edward," I told him. He forgot it too often. Of course, that was probably because I hadn't _been_ much help up until now.

He couldn't kill this person. That was what he needed. He needed to get through what Aro wanted from him without killing the human. If he could do that, he could make it into the next day and the day after that until the next time Aro asked him to cut out another sliver of who he was.

"When?" I asked. How much time did we have to find a way?

"He hasn't decided," said Edward. "Days?"

"What's her name?" I asked.

"His name is Marcell. He studied in the U.S., then went to a law school in Rome." His lip twisted and I felt his fingers clench on my arm. "When he came to Volterra, he—"

"No," I said, stopping him. "Don't tell me. Whatever's wrong with this guy, don't talk about it. Don't think about it if you can help it." Edward had said that he'd killed Gianna because he'd hated her. Gianna was one of the closest things to a regular person that I'd seen in Volterra. Whoever this Marcell was, he was probably worse.

Edward looked at me for a moment, then nodded, but I could tell he didn't think it would be enough. Neither did I, not really.

"Would it help if I were there with you?"

"Yes," he answered without hesitation, "but—"

"Then I will be," I said.

"—I don't know if the Masters will allow it."

"I will be there this time," I repeated.

He looked from my eyes to the rest of my face and back. I could see him deciding not to argue.

We hadn't talked about what he'd said to me in the feasting hall. I hadn't had the guts. But what little I did know was like a warm ember in my stomach, filling me up. He had loved me. I hadn't imagined it.

If something like time could be relative, changing with space and speed, then maybe love was too. Was it that Edward could only love me in Forks when things were going well? He'd said that vampires couldn't change.

Back in Forks, I'd been Edward's match—or at least I'd thought so at the time. What he'd needed had been to forgive himself and allow himself to be happy, and I'd helped with those things just by being who I was. Here in Volterra, we had other responsibilities, and they weren't coming naturally to me. Vampire politics? Military tactics? I didn't know the first thing about any of them. Edward would have been a million times better off stuck in Volterra with Jasper than with me. Alice might have been even better. Even Rosalie, with her fearless determination, would have done as well. She, at least, could have intimidated some of the cattiness out of these Volterran vampire girls.

I held my breath, closing out the scents of the hallway. Maybe Jasper or Emmett or Rosalie would have made a better companion, but he didn't have them; he had me. Whatever it was that had to be done, I was going to have to do it.

"Do you still want to go practice?" I asked.

He nodded. "You know," he said, "I think I might be learning a few things from Felix." The strain behind the attempted humor made my throat hurt, but I was glad he was trying.

"Well when Big-Stupid-Ogre-Fu comes into style, you'll be ready for your black belt," I answered.

His half-smile dropped away. "Be careful no one hears you, Bella."

"It's only a joke, Edward," I snapped.

He pursed his lips and I felt bad for being short with him. He was trying his best, too, after all. And for all that his nagging grated on me, he was right: The stakes here were high, higher than I was able to fully comprehend. I _knew_ that there were things I didn't understand about turning a new vampire, about Renata and Heidi, about hazing and Rolfe and Felix and Aro, and I knew that I was making mistakes and doing things that I would regret once I finally got a clue, but there was nothing for me to do about it except keep my eyes open.

And watch. And remember. And keep my little lists of which vampire was which, who had which powers, who had which weaknesses, and how to make them work for me. I'd figured it out that day in the tunnel, right before my disastrous run-in with that poor lady who worked here. Edward had said something about Aro knowing everything we did, and I'd figured it out.

It wasn't that _we_ couldn't keep an escape plan secret from Aro, it was that _he _couldn't do it.

I wanted two things out of life—well, two things that were possible—I wanted Edward and I wanted my freedom. The first one... Well, I already had a pretty good game plan about that, but it was a bit ...fluid. It depended on someone else's wishes. If I did everything I could and Edward still didn't want me, then I was going to have to accept it.

The second one was a lot simpler. I was getting the hell out of Volterra no matter what _anyone_ else wanted, and I was taking Edward with me.

I wasn't my mother. As much as I wanted to see Charlie and Jacob and Alice _right now_, I could focus, take it slow, play the long con. I would wear a gray cloak and smile at Edward and do what Renata told me and act like I was slowly adjusting to life here.

It could take a long time. It could take a hundred years, but I _had_ time now, thanks to Edward. I was laying my foundations too.

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One of my favorite moments in _Twilight_ is when Bella does her Snow White bit, coming to the house, cleaning up, making dinner and putting things to rights. It showed that she wasn't a useless, whining froth (and considering how much whining she did later on, it was kind of necessary for balance).

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	25. Ch 24 Together

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is a fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

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"Anything weaker than the bond between partners is in danger. In a

normal coven, at least." –Eleazar, _Breaking Dawn_

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_Keep it together. Keep it together. Keep it together..._

I'd expected him to choose a prayer, but now that he was here, this made more sense.

Marcell. He was a broad-faced, youngish man, not quite thirty. Caius had selected him for legal service because of a case he'd won on municipal zoning back in Rome. Aro had selected him for his pet project because he'd be able to pass for anything between twenty-one and forty after he was turned. And something about him reminded him of Bella. Personally, I didn't see it.

He was reciting the same words, the same letters, over and over in his head, going through every language he knew. English, then Italian, then German, then one of the Slavic languages that I didn't speak, then back to English. He was turning himself into white noise, but it still wasn't quite better than nothing. Nothing was better than nothing.

I looked across the room, and there she was, next to Renata. Her pale gray hood was up over her dark hair, but I could see her eyes, bright red and hopeful. Her lips were pressed together in a tight smile. She was stone, but she was gentle stone, at least to me.

I would never know what it cost her to stand still and encourage me. She must have been thinking about the two humans she'd fed on. She must have been thinking about the time I'd turned her. But I'd never know for sure.

And that, we'd figured out, was what worked for me.

It hadn't only been Gianna's blood. Gianna had been thinking about being a vampire, imagining what it would be like to be immortal, powerful, to feed on humans. She had misconceptions in a few places, but she was dead right far too often for my liking. She'd had a rather sophisticated fantasy about what she'd do to one of the girls from maintenance whom she'd seen eying Felix a few too many times.

I'd have preferred to think that it was only that she reminded me how wretched she was, how little harm I'd be doing if I let her die, but I could be honest with myself. I couldn't help being honest with myself when Aro saw my every thought and I saw his every conclusion: Her thoughts of feeding had blended with my reality of feeding and holding back had become more than I could manage.

_Focus_, I warned myself. Thinking about that would only make things worse. I had to think of the human in front of me. I had to get us both through this.

_Keep it together. Keep it together. Keep it together._

It was as good a mantra as any, really. He could have been reciting nonsense poems or lines of tax law. We'd coached him to do just that, and I'd spent the past week trying to think of him as a poor fool who didn't know what he was getting into. If he didn't prove me wrong in the next three minutes, I might just manage not to kill him.

I'd raised the issue of anesthesia with Aro, of putting them entirely out. His answer, silent but certain has been, _Maybe next time_. He didn't want to change too many variables in his little experiment, at least not too many at once.

I turned the man's head aside as gently as I could. I kept my eyes on Bella and tried not to think about what I was doing as I bit down. This was just ...a mold in a dentist's office. I just had to get my venom into the body and then...

For a second, I kept my head. That's all I needed, really. It wouldn't have to take more than one bite. It wouldn't—

_Oh God..._

It was too good, I thought as my eyes rolled shut. It was just _too damned good_ after all that pig's blood, with Gianna's and Bella's still fresh in my mind.

_Keep it together. Keep ...together... Keep..._

I kept it together. I didn't let go because if I did this feeling would stop. I had to remember... I had to remember not to drop him. His blood didn't belong on the floor. It belonged in me. There was noise somewhere but it was unimportant. There were thoughts, far away. They were in another universe, with mine.

_Oh God, it hurts!_ But it didn't hurt at all.

...at least not right then.

I was never too clear on what happened next. My nerves seemed to come alive with pain, but that only made me hold on, bite down harder. Then there was a growl, and anger, and a hard, wet crunching sound that seemed to come from inside my head. I was halfway across the room, with another vampire holding my arm in a death grip and her on my other side, saying my name over and over. I would remember snarling and lashing out against the force holding me back from my food, _my food_, until my body caught fire again, and I stumbled, my captors' grip the only thing between me and the flagstones.

"That's enough! You stopped him already!"

That was when I registered the sounds coming from the center of the room, and they were too much like, just like...

"Come on," she whispered, and two sets of arms pulled me out of the room. The pain left, but all my will to fight left with it. The world was suddenly empty, and it was a relief.

There was something I had to remember. There was something I'd forgotten and I needed it back, but the room was full of thoughts and my mind was full of thoughts and I couldn't tell whether I was Felix thinking about tossing some scrawny boy out into the hallway while his tasty little shrew of a mate watched—_Finally made a noise. Guess he's not made of wood after all_—or Caius thinking about a newborn who might meet all his hopes or someone else who could only scream, _They never told me it would be this bad!_

There were voices, far away, far away because they were outside my head instead of in it. "He hit him pretty hard. Can you manage?" a male, and then a female, "I'll take care of it. You go back," and she wasn't in my head and I loved her for it.

At the time, I only knew that something had happened, something had gone wrong and I was terribly exhausted. I felt like a man in a river with nothing to brace himself against the current, just trying to grip with his toes and hold his head upright. I'd been fighting water all day and now I was tired.

Something touched my face and I shuddered. I opened my eyes to find myself leaning against one of the old window casings. There was sunlight coming down through the remaining slits near the ceiling.

I think that I did know, on some level, how I had been injured. Or maybe I only figured it out later and projected the knowledge back onto the memory, but I did know I had to stay still. I did know that the faint, dusty creaking in the back of my consciousness was a good thing, and that the aching and dimness would stop if I held still and waited.

She was touching my face with a damp cloth, my cheeks, my forehead, my mouth. Her eyes had been red a few moments ago, but they were darkening now. I stared into them and watched the black swallow up each fleck of pigment in her irises, like embers going dark. It must have been the scent in the room. There was blood around here somewhere, human blood, and I had to remember... Or was it that I had to forget?

I knew that I knew her. Every cell in my body knew her. She was mine, wasn't she? And if something here was terribly wrong, it was a long way off. I didn't want to move. Something about the ache in my head made me not want to move, not so long as she didn't.

Her eyes had turned dark. The cloth had turned pink. I reached up and took it away from her and felt the air move around me as she breathed in hard. Her hands stopped on my upper arms. Her eyes stopped on my lips.

_Go ahead_, I thought. She could. Was there a reason why she shouldn't?

She leaned forward, licking at something on the corner of my mouth before drawing my lower lip between her teeth and sucking hard. I dropped the cloth and cupped the back of her head with one hand. I snaked my other arm around her waist until I could feel her shape against me through our clothes. God but she felt good... Her hips and her breast and her scent and her hands on my shoulders and the shudder in her body as I pushed into her mouth.

This was so much better than the time I'd kissed her in the meadow, I realized as my mind became clearer. I didn't have to hold back, and there was what _she_ was doing. There was an eagerness to her that hadn't been there before, some new hunger—

It was like cresting up through the surface of a lake. Reality drew me fast into the cold air, leaving currents of my dream ripping down.

I had a brief moment of clarity, a second to figure out how to extricate myself. I leaned back, but she moved with me, still enchanted by the trace human blood in my mouth. I brought my other hand up to Bella's shoulder and gave her a gentle push. There was a light growl from the center of her throat. I pushed harder. Nothing. She was a rock.

I turned my head away and she growled again, trying to follow me. "Stop," I said firmly.

And there she was, nothing more or less than herself. My newborn fellow prisoner. And she'd only... This had only been about...

I ducked my head down and sucked air in through my nose. _Oh God. Oh God..._ This was too much.

For a second, I'd forgotten. It had taken a goddamned smashed cranium, but for a second, I'd forgotten whom I'd been with, where we were, everything that had happened. But now I remembered. This wasn't really my Bella, and that hadn't really been a kiss.

"I'm sorry, Edward," she said. "I—"

I didn't look up, but I nodded tightly. She took the hint and stopped talking. I pressed one palm against my forehead and felt my shoulders shake. My breathing caught in my chest, so I stopped, but my shoulders shook me again and again and I hoped to God she thought it was because I'd just killed someone.

"Hey," she whispered, stepping toward me again. She put her arms around me and I pressed both my eyes against her shoulder.

"Bella," I whispered, and it sounded pathetic even to me. I missed her. I missed her _so_ much. I'd managed not to break down like this the whole time, not when Alice had left us, not when I'd found her in that cell, not when she'd made her second kill. I did now, for everything we'd both lost. This wasn't my Bella from the old days. Did that have to be so bad? Or it was and she'd just licked a man's blood off my lips and snarled for more.

"I know," she murmured. "I know." She didn't. I hoped she never would.

"It went well," she said, and I could feel the air leaving her chest as she said it. "It went well. He didn't die. You did it this time. It went well."

I didn't say anything. I didn't want her to see. And I did not want it to have gone well. If it had, they'd tell me to do it again.

"All right," I said after a few moments. I breathed in and out without incident. "I'm all right," I said. I was close enough to it, anyway. Besides, we wouldn't be alone in this hallway for that much longer.

Reality. I'd just turned my second newborn in three months. By now, Felix would have taken Marcell down to the holding cells. It would be as much for his protection as anything else. He still smelled human, and fresh blood inside a wounded, twitching body was like vampire catnip. He wouldn't need to stay down there as long as Bella had. They'd be able to do things the usual way.

And now I could hear other things. Was this how it was going to be? Would I be so in tune with Aro's thoughts that he would command me from a world away?

"He's not happy," I said. "He's not happy."

"Who? Marcell?"

"Aro."

Her face hadn't changed, but I could see she was confused. After all, I'd managed to get through this without killing the human. But that was it. I'd _managed_. I hadn't acquitted myslf better than anyone else. Felix could have done as well, and his record was hit-and-miss.

So was mine, I reminded myself, letting my eyes trail down the play of the light on a lock of Bella's hair. One success and one failure.

"Nothing special happened today, Bella," I said. "That's how a turning usually goes." I closed my eyes, trying to focus on the flickering images of the minds in the compound. Felix was laying Marcell down on the floor of the holding cell. He was still bleeding. I pressed my lips together. The venom should have sealed his wounds...

Bella was quiet for a moment. "What's going to happen?" she asked.

_To the man I turned? Hell._ I shook myself. I had to stop thinking of the humans here like that, or I'd never be able to turn one. "If he lives," I said, _meaning if he comes back as a ravening blood-drinker_, "then Jane will have charge of him. They'll give him time, as they've given you time, but then they'll want to know if he can control himself as you do. They'll test him." Her lip twisted at that. She knew what kind of testing the masters would have in mind.

What wouldn't happen to Marcell was any of the lessons I'd given Bella. Aro's orders had been very quiet, and very clear. I was to step aside gracefully and act as though I didn't mind.

_You may have little Bella, Edward, for as long as she wishes to follow you_, he'd thought, and I'd known that he also meant for as long as I remained his obedient servant. Aro wasn't a cruel man, but from his perspective, locking Bella in a room with desirable food would not constitute cruelty. _But anyone else you turn on my orders is newborn to the Volturi._

It wasn't that I wanted the extra responsibility, but I knew it was mine. And I did not like that I would not do what I ought.

Most of my life had been clear. There was the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do. I'd never been in situation in which doing one thing right meant that I _had_ to do another thing wrong. Helping Marcell would put Bella in more danger. Focusing solely on Bella meant that Marcell would be left to the tender care of Felix and Jane.

It wasn't that I wanted to teach him. I didn't even like him. But he was my newborn and that counted for something.

Bella turned her head and stared down the hallway. "I think I can hear someone coming," she said.

I turned my head, listening for the mental voice. Demetri. Damn. I'd hoped that Aro would have given me more time to compose myself. Losing control this way, in front of half the guard would have been humiliating even if there hadn't been a turning involved.

"Come on," Bella whispered, tugging on my sleeve. "Let's go pretend you're teaching me to fight again. We'll just hang out down there. No one will bother us."

I shook my head. I had no spirit for it. I could see that I was on Demetri's mind, but whether he'd been sent to fetch me or was just remembering the near-debacle in the audience chamber wasn't clear, and I was in no mood to try to figure it out. Demetri was moving away from us anyway, going down another hallway.

Bella pulled at my arm again. With her strength, I was on my feet despite myself. "You can bore me by telling me more about China and the gulf of wherever blowing us all up with World War Three," she coaxed.

I almost laughed at that. The truth was that there had been three more girls in the news. The _Baltimore Guardian_ was on a bit of a kick for exposees about young girls from rural China being offered jobs only to find that they'd been bought as wives by men in woman-poor regions. Aro had spent some time dwelling on that one. It wasn't widespread, but it had caught his attention. Through most of human history, high male-female ratios had resulted more in increased prostitution than in things like this. Of course, I doubted that the girls in question felt particularly lucky. They were only forced to submit to one man each, and they technically had the title of wife, but they'd still been kidnapped. The ones who made it home were the only ones anyone heard about. When the reporters got tired of it, they'd move on to the next great injustice and people would go back to not giving a damn.

My eyes trailed down the side of Bella's face. _Was that a real kiss?_ I could open my mouth and say the words, but then she'd hear them, and I already knew the answer. I didn't want her to have to come up with some excuse, or worse, say out loud what she'd really been feeling when I held her in my arms. I remembered it from my own early years, and the thought of those impulses laid on top of her like a layer of rust made me ill.

She was a newborn vampire, much as I might wish she weren't. She wasn't a human. She wasn't a mature woman of our kind. For her, things like this were natural, and I was a fool to forget it. As Emmet would have said, I had to get over my damn self.

She pulled up the grate and put it down to the side. She knew exactly where to grip it now to make it come loose without raining flecks of rust down into the tunnel beneath. She had a practiced hand.

By now, any of the Volturi who gave a damn about our wherabouts knew that we came here from time to time. The ones who paid attention knew I was giving her lessons. The rest supposed that was only a cover for intimate encounters. Either way, it was a giant do-not-disturb sign, and most of our new brethren left us to it. Now that it occurred to me, though, combat lessons or something like them _would_ make a good cover for a mated pair who wanted some privacy. An overheard noise or two would be dismissed. No one would notice if their clothes were scuffed afterward.

She stepped to the side to let me go down first, as if I were still the one leading. My feet hit the cobblestones with a familiar jolt. I moved away so that she could come down behind me, giving the grate a tug so that it slide into place behind her.

The weather had been dry, and the floor was only damp today. In high summer, it might not even be that. Then there would be a wet autumn and a freeze or two this winter. We could watch all four seasons turn without ever seeing the sun. It felt friendly to be down here, in a place where no one had yet come after us.

"This was a good idea," I said. I let her lead me to the edge of the tunnel, where the wall didn't curve back so steeply. She sat down, tugging me down with her. I leaned my head against the ancient brick, and she tucked herself inside the curve of my arm, as if she were still a creature who could be affected by the cold.

I let my arm sink down around her shoulders. I'd put my arm around her before, up in the compound, so that the Volturi would think we really were together. Why shouldn't I do so here? What did it matter if no one was watching? It would be a good habit, make things seem more natural when I had to perform again.

"Do you think I have a gift, Edward?" she asked.

"Like I do?"

She nodded.

The truth was that I hadn't thought about it much. Once Aro had stopped arranging his sadistic little testing scenarios, my attention had shifted to bigger problems. We still had bigger problems. I shook my head. "I don't know."

"Aro thought I did," she said.

I nodded. "Yes." Aro had had better things to think about as well, though it might only be that he waited to speculate about Bella until I wasn't listening to his thoughts. An image surfaced in my mind, Aro with two vampires ahead of him and two behind, and the look on my sister's face when she'd seen it. I actually shook my head to clear it. The less I thought about her the better.

"Do you think he might let me go when my year is up?"

I felt my fingers stop moving. I hadn't even realized that I'd let them slip into a lock of her hair. I told myself that Bella could be asking that question for any reason. And she'd said she wouldn't leave me. "He might," I said, "especially if he thought he didn't need you as leverage. But there's more to the Volturi than vampires with gifts. Not everyone in the guard has a gift." Aro would also need to save face, to make it look like he was perfectly in control, and just letting someone go without a clear political reason... No... No he could always say he'd only kept Bella here until he was sure she had learned to control her bloodlust. He could let her leave in the spring and be none the worse for it. No... no, she had her cloak now. She was one of us. It would be harder.

I knew what she was thinking, and it would be a hard line to walk. She'd have to hover just beneath Aro's standards, be neither so dull that she made herself into a problem nor so useful that Aro or Caius had any desire to keep her on. It was a good plan, but I wasn't sure if she could do it. She didn't have a strong track record of being able to deceive people, especially if it meant she had to cover her anger.

"Who in the guard doesn't have a gift?" Bella asked.

"It would be faster to tell you who does," I said. "There's Demetri, of course, and you know about Renata."

"You said something about Marcus being able to ...see relationships?" she asked.

I considered reminding her to call him "Master Marcus," but I didn't need her to start glaring at me again. "Not just romances," I told her. "He can see the layers of connection between any two people, or even groups of people." It was hard to explain how he visualized it. At one moment, he'd think of them like magnetic waves, and then another, he'd imagine cables of loyalty, animosity and affection glowing white or red or gold, tying people's thoughts together. I frowned, "I haven't put the whole picture together but..."

"But?" she asked.

"I think he's why the Volturi can do what they do. Live together," I explained. She looked confused, and I felt myself smiling. "My family—the Cullens, I mean—we're unusual. Most vampires don't live together in groups of more than two or three. Jasper thinks it's just a practical matter—too many people to share too little food—but Carlisle thinks that we _can't_ live together without fighting, that we have some kind of territorial impulse."

"Felix certainly pushes you around enough," she said in a slightly huffy voice.

"But not to the point where he drives me out of Volterra. That's what entrenched covens do to nomads who linger in their lands too long."

She wrinkled up her nose and for a moment I didn't need to hear her thoughts. _Snow leopards, again?_

"I've heard Marcus reminiscing a time or two," I said. "I think he was the one who put the guard together in the first place, choosing who would perform which duties, and in which groups. He can't change a person's essential nature, but he can identify the people who rile each other the least—and the most—and arrange things to best effect." Sometimes he thought about it like one of his building projects: Aro, Caius and himself formed the foundation, and vampires with steadier personalities were pillars reaching up to unstable, energetic souls at the clerestory. I hadn't seen where Bella and I fit in to this metaphor just yet.

Breathing in, I found that I was no longer shaking. I looked at her sideways for a moment, finally figuring out a smile. I'd needed to talk about something other than what had happened to Marcell, and I hadn't even realized it. But she had, picking a topic that forced me to concentrate and categorize information. It was perfect.

"Kind of like how Charlotte took care of Collins in _Pride and Prejudice_?" she asked.

I smiled, imagining Jane Austen's dowdy new bride managing her household so as to keep her pompous, irritating husband as occupied as possible. "Yes," I nodded. "Like that. He was the one who told Caius to have Rolfe and Demetri work with me instead of Felix."

Bella snorted. "You don't need to be able to read people's personalities to figure out you and Felix are a bad combination."

I shook my head. "I don't think that's how it works. I think two people have to start interacting before there's anything for him to read. But he doesn't do it so much any more, not since Chelsea joined the guard."

"She's the one who's like Jasper," Bella added.

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Her gift," Bella said. "Renata told me that she can calm people down."

"Oh," I answered. "Yes, I suppose she does, but not the way Jasper can. It's more like she can strengthen, weaken or cut people's ties of affection."

I found the Chelsea's gift a bit distasteful and more than a bit unnerving, truth be told, but Bella went absolutely stiff in my arms. "Wait, what?"

I found that I was staring at her. "There's no need to be alarmed," I said. Then I realized that that wasn't exactly true. Now that I remembered, I'd actually been quite angry when I'd caught Chelsea trying to use her gift on me. It seemed somewhat strange to me now that I would have reacted so intensely. It wasn't that serious of a matter. "Marcus can see the connections between people, but Chelsea can manipulate them directly, like she's a..." I trailed off. Bella was half-kneeling beside me, watching intently as I spoke, but she didn't look any calmer. Whatever I'd said, it wasn't helping.

"So she... She just reaches into people's heads and—what? Pulls things out?"

"No," I said reassuringly. Then I thought about it. I supposed, technically, that that was what she did.

"That's it, isn't it?" Bella was saying. "I can see it on your face." She looked away. "Why didn't Renata tell me about this? Does she even know? Is it like brainwashing or something?"

"No, it's—" I stopped. For some reason, the things Bella was saying were tripping me up. "It's not always that bad," I said. "Most of the time she only makes small adjustments. It reminded me of someone tuning a piano, actually," I said, remembering But why did I also remember being so angry about it?

"Why are you defending her?" asked Bella.

"Well because..." But there wasn't anything after that.

Bella ran her fingers through her hair. I could see the wheels turning in her head. I just couldn't see where they were going. "Edward, you're telling me that there's someone here who can make Julienne fries out of our brainwaves," she said, and I could tell she was upset. She looked back at me, putting one hand on my shoulder. "Edward, you—"

Her breath caught in a little gasp and her eyes focused on something that I was sure wasn't there.

"What's wrong?" I asked, leaning up to take hold of her hands. Something had happened, I was sure of it. She'd figured something out or...something. She'd gone from looking like she was at the point of panic to just seeming a bit dazed. "Are you all right?" I asked.

She nodded, still staring at me as if I suddenly looked different.

Then I realized why I hadn't warned her about Chelsea before today. It was a secret. Most of the guard didn't know, and Aro didn't want them to. I felt sickened, learning that I'd done his will without realizing it, but there was no help for it now.

"Look, um..." I said inarticulately. "Don't tell anyone that I told you any of these things. They're not exactly public knowledge around here."

"Okay," said said.

"I wouldn't worry too much about Chelsea if I were you," I told her. I'd meant to sound reassuring, but there was an edge in my voice that hadn't been there a minute earlier. "She wasn't able to cut my tie to Carlisle," I said, allowing myself to feel a little smug. "She's seen bonds that she couldn't break before, but they were always pair bonds. I don't think she even knows what real loyalty is." I could remember it more clearly now. She'd tried to distance me from my real family. I felt my lip twist in disgust. Conniving bitch... I remembered how much I'd wanted to rip her throat from her body. The thought of her reaching into my mind and trying to steal my love for Carlisle, Emmett and Esme all but set my veins on fire.

"But what if she tries it again?" Bella asked carefully. "When you're not paying attention?"

"It's beyond her," I said. But I found myself seeing things from another angle. Chelsea might just try again. If she was careful to do so while my attention was elsewhere, it just might work. Or...

People like my family could not live in peace without the Volturi or someone like them. Whatever I might think of their methods, I had a genuine admiration for the Volturi's mission. If Chelsea came at me through that, tried to add instead of subtract... I had to hope it didn't occur to her. And even if I caught her in the act, would that stop her?

I met Bella's eyes. "I'll be careful," I said to her. "I promise."

Bella looked off to one side, like she was trying to figure something out. She breathed in and I felt sure she was going to say more on the subject, but instead she asked, "Is Demetri looking for us?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Can you hear him thinking?" she asked. "Right now?"

I considered saying that I was in no mood for the hatchet-faced man's brittle malice, but how much effort would it take, really? I filtered through the crowd of vampires above us until I found his gravelly voice.

"He's thinking about looking for us but he isn't actually doing it," he said. "He expects Aro will send him to find me soon and is debating whether it'll be less work to just find me first."

"Oh," she said, almost sounding disappointed. She pulled her hands away out of mine. "Never mind, then."

_Oh, there he is_, I heard. Demetri was wondering why he hadn't thought to check down here earlier. _Aro won't mind if I wait a moment. After all, I don't want to interrupt if the two of them are—_

I focused on Bella as hard as I could. Demetri wasn't as crude as Felix, but the clarity of his thoughts made up for that. "He's changed his mind," I amended. "We should head back up before he comes down."

Bella looked at her fingers and then at me. She was probably thinking about that nightmarish parody of a kiss. I wondered if she remembered how she'd clutched at my shoulders. I could practically still feel her hands on me. Her touch a moment earlier hadn't been so different.

She could leave if she wanted to. Cloak or not, she could leave Volterra in the spring if she played this right. I didn't know how I felt about that. She'd helped me so much already, and not just by giving me something to focus on other than my own selfish problems. When the time came, I knew I could let her go, but what would I do after that?

I'd deal with it when it happened—if it happened. Until then, I would just be glad we were together.

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Some people have commented on the presentation of Bella in this story. I'd like to point out that _most_ 'fics portray Bella as more independent and Edward as more sensible than either of them are in the books. A credit to the fandom.

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	26. Ch 25 Wrong

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is a fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

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"But you see how independent Benjamin is. He won't be used." –Edward, _Breaking Dawn_

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We'd started at the farmhouse.

This place had been a working farm once, long since converted to a city businessman's private retreat and the surrounding land repurposed or sold off. Like many other properties in this part of the peninsula, it was in the process of foreclosure. The owners had left, or simply remained in their primary residence. But in this housing market, there was little chance that it would be purchased by a new owner. The sign out front hadn't been touched in some time.

Places like this attracted squatters. Squatters tended to be the kinds of people who wouldn't be reported missing until after their killers were miles away.

Under other circumstances, the residents might have made acceptable prey, but the bank had sent someone to check on the property, and he had disappeared as well. The story had made the local paper and a few people had made a blog post or two.

One of the guardia had found the bodies in the basement, drained of blood and hardly concealed at all. He'd also found a bent fireplace poker compressed in the shape of a hand.

We'd arrived just after dusk. The vampires who'd done the deed were long gone, of course. This deep in the Volturi heartland, they would have known not to linger, but it was too early to tell if they knew they were marked.

Rolfe had picked the lock. Hadn't left so much as a scratch on the keyhole. Then we'd stepped inside. The blood had been removed, and the iron poker was locked in some inspector's closet sporting a plastic bag marked "evidence." Retrieving it would be Heidi's task. That was not why we were here.

I had to admit, it was amazing to watch Demetri in his element. As with Aro, I had a front-row seat to something ..._rare_.

I could see why I'd had no luck in my search for Victoria. Demetri's eyes didn't miss a thing. He saw through the scuff marks left behind by the investigators and the ordinary wear of fifty years of normal use, picking out the signs of vampire and prey with a practiced eye. He breathed in the air around us and identified two scents, distinguishing them from the room, the past and each other. He would have been a master tracker even without his gift.

_They'd have placed that to block the light_, he thought noting the bookcase pushed in front of a north-facing window. These vampires didn't like to keep every source of sunlight covered, so they'd dealt with the one opening that would cause the most trouble while they enjoyed the local amenities. Running water. Running blood.

It was like watching someone worry bits of glass out of a magpie's nest without tearing it. A set of impressions was forming in Demetri's mind, not _images_, not _flavors_. It was far closer to the soundless voices I detected whenever I focused on a given person's thoughts. With every decision Demetri pried from the house, they became clearer to him. Two minds...

Two minds headed north.

"What did they do?" she asked me.

"They left evidence behind, and humans found it," I told her.

"They're not still here are they?" she asked.

"No," I whispered. "They're trying to get to France."

Demetri looked up at me, eyes narrow and scrutinizing.

What could I do? I smiled.

_I didn't know he was that fast_. Demetri had thought my gift worked like his, that I had to get a sense of things before I knew anything. Rolfe was taking to me because he thought I was amusing. Demetri would take to me if he thought I was useful.

I wondered if that was why Aro had sent me on this mission. I'd assumed it was to keep me away from Marcell, but he'd gotten better and better at keeping things from me. The more I learned about Demetri, the more I knew that I would never be able to escape from Volterra.

Well, it was certainly tempting, I thought as we locked up the house and left. Bella stepped up beside me and let her fingers twist around mine. I didn't let go until Demetri cast me a commanding look. The Volturi did not break discipline in the open.

I could have told him that there was no one around for miles, no one to see, but that wasn't the point.

We were outside Volterra, the pair of us, and I so wanted to run. I had to actively remind myself that, as calm as she'd become, Bella would never make it all the way to New York on her own, not without exposing herself to the public, and if I went with her, Demetri would catch us both.

I was never far from her. Demetri thought I was being protective. Rolfe thought I was being possessive. Chelsea watched, just watched, her two eyes like the jaws of some insect parasite. The truth was I was sure this mission had been a mistake. She wasn't ready yet. Her control was a hundred times better than that of a normal newborn her age, but she still wasn't able to resist blood at a mature level. There was too much that could go wrong.

Bella had been outside before, for a ten-minute walk around the piazza at four in the morning, keeping a death grip on my arm the whole time. I'd begged Caius not to send her—or come as close to it as I could without disrespecting him in front of the guard.

Caius hadn't wanted to wait. Aro had been sure the risk of Bella exposing herself was minimal, so long as she was properly supervised. It galled me to hope that he was right.

On my trip to Budapest, we'd used cars and trains, but then we'd known our destination. To a vampire with a moving target, the fastest way to travel was on foot. Whenever we were far enough from the road, Demetri would set a punishing pace, but I was enough in tune with his thought processes to match him, and Rolfe had known him way too long to be troubled. Bella sometimes overshot when he changed direction, but her speed made up for that. When no one was looking, I'd allowed myself a smile. She looked like she might even be faster than I was in a flat-out race, at least until her human blood wore off.

She seemed to be enjoying herself, closing her eyes against the fresh night air or laughing quietly as she followed along. She couldn't tell, but even Rolfe was starting to get annoyed. I'd whisper to her whenever we stopped: "Don't smile." "Don't lower your hood." "Don't speak unless you have to." She'd shoot me a put-upon look or two. I wished she'd just do as I said, trust my judgment until there was time to explain.

The Volturi weren't a modern military. There weren't classes of newcomers coming in at once. Most recruits were brought into the fold one at a time and followed the actions of their new brethren willingly and eagerly, if not always without incident. If Caius really wanted his army of neophytes, then someone would have to work out how to teach people who weren't volunteers fully versed in the Volturi legend. But that would come. I'd seen bits of Rolfe's own arrival in his memory. For such a joke-loving man, he'd taken well to this life.

He thought he knew why. He had no idea.

Chelsea's thoughts were wordless with frustration. I managed to keep my gloating on the inside. She'd been angry when I'd caught her trying to affect my perceptions, but when she found a vampire upon whom her powers did not work at all... I pushed back my amusement. This wasn't funny. This was dangerous. Bella had made an enemy and did not know it. If Felix was Caius's lion and Demetri his bloodhound, then Chelsea was his worm. She could chew her way into an enemy and they wouldn't feel the pain of it until it was too late.

_He keeps hovering around the dark-haired female. I wonder what his story is,_ came the quick-moving, inquisitive thoughts. I looked over my shoulder at the young, dark-skinned man with eyes like shining red onyx.

This was another advantage of traveling overland. We attracted the attention of other vampires. Witnesses were an asset to an operation like this one. Witnesses would spread the word, say that the Volturi had acted rightly ...and if it seemed for a moment as though spreading the word would do more harm than good, the fires were already built.

For the past twelve hours, Benjamin had been trying to figure us out. This was the first time he'd seen the Volturi for himself.

And the _way_ he saw us. Benjamin's mind was conventional but strong. After months of bracing myself against the thoughts of vampires who saw me as a freakish criminal at worst and a curiosity at best, Benjamin's neutrality was unnerving. Through his half-experienced, confident eyes, I looked as though I'd always been here. I seemed as gray as the cloak around my shoulders, but he could tell there was power underneath. I was a knife with a soft cloth wrapped around it, hardly different from Demetri. Bella was the one who seemed innocent. More than once he contemplated asking her if I my attention was unwanted.

Benjamin was a nomad, but he'd had a coven not long ago. In his thoughts I could see flashes of other faces, the man who'd turned him and that man's mate, most likely. I could see him, bright-eyed and angry. He reminded me of someone whom Carlisle had described to me once, but I couldn't be certain it was the same man. Even now, with everything else going on before his eyes, Benjamin's thoughts weren't far from him. It made me want to smile. I wanted to walk up to this strange boy and tell him that I'd had a rebellious period of my own, long ago, and that right now there was nothing I'd like more than to go back to the man whose vision I'd once found so oppressive.

But I couldn't do that. Or I had to. I was a bit confused about which. The problem was that Benjamin was also _extraordinarily_ talented. His memories were full of images of lifting boulders with his mind, setting things on fire, conjuring icy winds out of nothing. He was ...amazing.

Aro would be pleased, very pleased that I'd brought him this memory. But what would he do if I did not bring Benjamin himself?

Warning him wouldn't help. Even thinking about warning him might expose me to Aro's anger. Instead, I focused on my reflection in his thoughts. I found that Benjamin's lack of malice toward me made it easier to focus on him than on Demetri or Chelsea or even Rolfe.

Of course, not all of his thoughts were pleasant. Benjamin's departure from his coven had been mostly about defying his maker, finding his own place in the world and seeing the wonders of Europe, but he was also looking for something specific. He already knew that the solitary life wasn't for him. To his own mind, he was a young vampire in his prime and it was high time he had a female. He supposed that he would have better luck finding one as a nomad than tagging along behind another man.

I found that exposure to Felix's perverse tauntings had not made me any more tolerant of less malicious speculation as to Bella's charms. Benjamin had given Chelsea a cursory look or two, but her appearance didn't appeal to him, and he had mistaken her Volturi field discipline for coldness. Bella, however, had long, shining hair, even if she was taller than he liked, and she smiled.

He wasn't insensible to the glares I sent his way, but he noticed other things as well. Bella stayed near me, but we rarely touched. My protective hovering reminded him of the way his maker treated him, not the way that same man treated his mate of many years. He wondered if Bella was talented. He wondered if I was trying to force her into a role of my imagining rather than her own.

Benjamin's interest in Bella was only passing, to my relief, but his thoughts made a few things clear to me: I had succeeded in making myself seem like one of the Volturi to an outsider's eyes. Aro would be pleased and even Demetri would have nothing to complain about. I had not, however, succeeded in making it appear as though Bella was my own. I would have to watch Chelsea and Afton if they were ever sent out together. I would learn.

To Benjamin, Bella was one of many pretty faces he'd seen on his journey. A smile would be conquest enough for him, and then he would move on.

I toyed with the idea of sending him to Denali with a letter of introduction. My cousins there would be just the thing for a young vampire in search of romance and adventures. And any vampire who learned that the vegetarian life was at least possible was a victory.

They didn't make it out of Italy. There had been little chance that they would. We caught up with them not far from a half-dead trainyard, three hours before dawn. They hadn't known we were there. They hadn't even been sure we were coming.

The scent of metal, oil, wood and cargo drifted toward us on the light breeze, half a mile distant.

I saw Bella's eyes on me, too wide. I saw her fingers flex and relax, like a cat stretching its claws. What I could see in her face wasn't fear but rather a sort of nervous agitation. I wished I'd remembered to tell her that we weren't in much danger. It was four against two and we had more experienced fighters, at least on average. I would have been able to tell from the way Demetri and Rolfe were acting that _they_ weren't afraid, but I remembered that Carlisle had always said I was better at that sort of thing than most people. Maybe Bella didn't know.

I wished I could give her instructions. I wished I could put my arms around her until she was still. But there were witnesses, of more than one kind.

_An open field_, Demetri noted. He'd gone through this hundreds of times in dozens of different situations. He thought out the rest without putting his thoughts into words: It was a good place for an ambush. The hills would hide the fires from human eyes until all the evidence had burned to ash. Our strategy formed in his mind almost on reflex.

He knew exactly where they were. He had a sense, whether from his gift or not, that they would break cover soon

I had more information for him, but I waited until he looked at me. "They don't know we're here but they're being careful just in case," I said in as neutral a tone as I could manage. "One of them wants to try to run across the field as soon as they hear the engine start, jump into a freight car while it's moving. The other one would rather walk in, pretend to be human, find out for sure which trains are going where."

It was an older vampire and his offspring. I'd been trying not to hear their names.

I spot-checked myself in Benjamin's thoughts. He wasn't wondering how I knew. Demetri had been acting on impossible knowledge all day. The fact that I could as well was no great surprise.

Demetri nodded to Benjamin and I watched a thrill go through his thoughts, words like _honor_ and _crime_ shining through his anxiety like gleaming wet rocks above churning water. "Go around to the other side," he said.

"To ...cut them off?" Benjamin asked.

"If it comes to that."

Benjamin paused, as if waiting for further explanation. Demetri was silent. Benjamin got the point and headed out.

Demetri looked at me, wondering if he needed to tell me what to do. I shook my head. I'd already seen it all.

"Just follow my lead, little sister," Rolfe whispered to Bella with half a smile. "Let the others go first. We're the grunts this time, you and me."

He was trying to help. Bella responded with a hollow, mechanical smile that sickened me.

I looked at Demetri and waited. He gave a nod to Chelsea and I heard her thoughts reach out like spidery fingers toward the two men hiding in the folds of land beneath us. This was the worst part.

It wasn't the delicate job I'd witnessed in the library back at the compound. It was like watching a piano tuner reverse her grip on her tools and drag them through the instrument. I saw her identify strings of affection, friendship and gratitude and pull them out like fistfuls of hair, never minding the chunks of scalp that came too.

They didn't feel a thing.

_What's his problem?_ thought Rolfe, and I let my face go blank. I hadn't realized I'd let that much show. Perhaps Bella wasn't the only one who still needed to learn the Volturi discipline.

The two minds hiding among the rocks below us were focused on the trains. One of them made a decision.

I nodded to Demetri but made no other move. Demetri inclined his head, watching. Now that our witness was out of the way, he let a tight, confident smile give some life to his features. He'd always been a blade, but now he gleamed.

Two figures darted out of the shadow of the hill beneath us and made a break for the train station. Under ordinary circumstances, the distance would have been scarely a minute's work for vampires taking only moderate care not to be seen.

Demetri nodded to me and I set out, skirting the eastern side of the depression. He would take the west himself, and the risk of the remaining daylight.

When they were almost halfway across, one of them caught scent of Benjamin, who'd been sent to hide upwind of them. Startled, he skidded to a stop. The other overshot him by a few paces, then slowed down. I could only see his silhouette, head tilted to one side, mouth open, mind forming a question.

He never spoke it. He never spoke anything, actually.

Demetri had more experience with these matters, but when it came down to it, I was just faster. I ran at the younger of the two vampires and left him sprawling on the grass, half his throat hanging by a flap of pale skin.

The elder heard me attack his offspring, but he didn't stop to help. He didn't even look over his shoulder. He bolted, but in the wrong direction. Demetri had predicted that our quarry would either continue north to the trains, in which case I was to catch hold of him and slow him down enough for Rolfe to get a grip on him, or turn left and run straight toward him. He went to Demetri.

Demetri at work made my lessons with Bella look like two children with sticks playing swordfighters. I barely saw his hands move, but I heard the sounds, like a stone wrapped in wet cloth and dropped from a great height. The man actually staggered forward a few feet before his leg gave way. Demetri was on him by then, but this vampire was older and more experienced than the one I'd disabled. Behind me, I could hear a wicked metallic ripping, but I kept my eyes on the task at hand. As Demetri ducked a blow to his midsection, I rounded on them both, searching for an opening. It was two on one. These were the last blows of a man who knew he wouldn't live to midnight.

The man lunged at Demetri again and the hatchet-faced vampire got him in an armlock. Before he could twist free, I had both my hands around his other arm and dislocated his shoulder. He gave a cry of pain that ended in a twisting gurgle. I looked down to see Demetri's arm protruding from the man's chest. I swallowed the sickness in my throat and finished my work on his arm.

Chelsea was already preparing the pyre. We weren't finished here yet. By now, the other vampire was sectioned and ready. The blaze would be quick and hot. Everything had to be smoke by the time any humans took notice.

"Hold him," Demetri said. Rolfe materialized on the prisoner's other side and we pulled what was left of his arms behind his back. To the prisoner's perspective, we'd acted in perfect unison. Vampires obeying orders and working together in large groups unnerved him, and that suited Demetri's purpose.

"What is your name?" Demetri asked. Benjamin, picking his way toward us from the near side of the north ridge, heard everything.

The man was breathing hard. I fought the instinct to shift my grip. I heard footsteps behind us as Demetri made eye contact with someone behind me. I breathed in Bella. Demetri inclined his head at her, but she didn't move.

"He wants you to take this man's right leg off at the knee," I said, bracing as the prisoner tried to struggle free.

I knew it was a mistake the minute the words were out of my mouth. I ran through scenarios of Bella gasping and starting to panic, running away or jumping at Demetri. I had to find a way to dispel the situation...

Her shoulder brushed against my side as she braced her foot against our prisoner's hip and a hideous steel groan went through the ground, through my hands, shook in my throat. My head snapped over my shoulder. Bella's expression was intent and a little stern but not haunted, like she was working on a math problem. I noted sickly that she'd botched it. Instead of using a twisting motion, she'd pulled straight, disassociating the knee joint but not the surrounding flesh. She licked her lips and pulled again, trying to detach the rest. I looked away.

Behind me, Rolfe was shaking his head. _She'll pick it up soon enough_, he thought. We would be doing this a lot, after all.

"Your name," repeated Demetri.

"...Eric," he said. That hadn't always been his name, but it was what he'd gone by for the past sixty years at least. I nodded at Demetri. He was telling the truth.

"You broke our oldest law, Eric," said Demetri. "You left evidence behind."

"I... I didn't mean to. I didn't— Please! It was Thomas! He did it!"

Demetri made a show of looking across the field at Thomas. Chelsea was looming like a vulture over his unburned but helpless limbs and torso.

By now, Benjamin was close enough to see what we were doing. He stopped, hovering behind Demetri. A great part of him was disappointed that he hadn't had the chance to help bring Eric and Thomas down. He'd been in a few fights since leaving his coven, but they'd been scuffles compared to this.

"Thomas is your newborn, Eric," said Demetri.

"Nn-no! He's almost two years," Eric protested, with a half-panicked, ingratiating smile. Images flashed through his mind of the night he'd found Thomas. He'd only wanted to feed on him, but he'd been interrupted by humans approaching. He'd dragged the body off rather than leave it behind as evidence, and by the time he'd found a safe place to bury it, his venom had already started its work. After that, he'd thrown himself into teaching the new vampire to survive, everything he'd learned.

They were clear memories, but there was a blankness to them. Chelsea had pulled all their meaning away.

"Thomas did it on his own. I didn't even know until it was already done, I swear."

He was throwing his offspring under the bus. But would he have done so if not for Chelsea?

"But you did not hide the evidence."

It was enough of a confession for Demetri. His gift told him that this was the same vampire he'd been tracking since the farmhouse in Italy, and mine told me that the man's thoughts matched what he was saying. Aro would touch us both when we returned, and he would know that we had found the guilty party. This questions were for Benjamin's benefit, so that he would tell others that we had been sure not to kill the wrong men.

"Who sent you to Italy?" Demetri asked. I blinked. We hadn't been sent to interrogate anyone. The sentence had already been passed. We were just carrying it out.

"Who are you working for?" Demetri repeated cleanly.

"Working for?" Eric asked back. Rolfe crushed his shoulder joint. "I—I'm not working for anyone!"

"He's nothing to do with them," I murmured. "He's just a fool who thought he could get away with cutting corners."

Demetri eyed me almost lazily for a moment. "You're sure?"

There was no way that this man could hide anything from me in his condition. I nodded.

And then his head came off in my hands. Demetri had barely seemed to move.

Bella was breathing hard. I caught a small, hidden smile on Rolfe's lips. What I saw in his mind made my skin crawl.

I'd been worried that Bella would be frightened by the events she would witness tonight. I'd been worried that she would lose control and end up hurting someone—or worse, end up the target of one of these hunting trips. It turned out I'd been worried about the wrong things.

Rolfe and Bella had torn the helpless younger vampire apart. And in Rolfe's memory...

"Chelsea?" Demetri called out.

"Ready," she answered, tucking a half-empty flask into the pocket of her cloak. She'd already doused the pieces of poor Thomas in some kind of accelerant. I bent down to take care of Eric, but Benjamin appeared at my elbow, a fierce, eager grin on his handsome features. An image of what he wanted dawned in my mind. I released the prisoner's arm and stepped back. As he darted in to take my place, Rolfe gave a chuckle. "First time at one of these, friend?" I heard Rolfe ask.

I took Bella by the arm and gently pulled her away. "He wants to do it," I muttered. "Let him."

_"'Why?'"_ I wanted her to say. _"'He doesn't enjoy it, does he? That's sick.'"_ But she only nodded and stepped back with me, standing like a statue at my elbow, finally showing that perfect Volturi stillness.

Rolfe and his helper made short work of the body. The four of us took the pieces over to where Demetri was waiting with Thomas and Eric's head. Its jaw was still moving. He was trying to talk, but his larynx was dangling out of what remained of his neck. It wouldn't have done him any good. His thoughts were a jumble of terrified nonsense.

When she'd first been turned, I had been unable to read the expressions on her new face. Now I only wished I couldn't. She was trying to hide it underneath her other feelings, but there it was. I looked away. There was nothing I could do except look away.

Now was as good a time as any. I walked up beside Benjamin, his face wild as he tore the remaining pieces of Eric apart. "Our master," I said as smoothly as I could manage, "would be pleased if you came to speak with him in Volterra."

The boy stopped his work and looked at me for a moment. From the corner of my eye, I saw Demetri look up at us.

"Would he be _dis_pleased if I did not come?" Benjamin asked me.

I paused, considering my answer. "Not with you," I said at last.

Benjamin's gaze drifted to his left, and I could see the future in his imagination. His fingers tightened and he broke Eric's wrist bones. He saw himself in a gray cloak. He saw himself dispensing justice.

I opened my mouth. I wanted to warn him, but I knew I couldn't risk any more than I already had.

Benjamin smiled. "Thank you for the invitation. I will..." he nodded. "Thank you." He didn't want to say anything yet. He'd run away from one master already, and freedom was still very sweet to him. But, sooner or later, he would change his mind.

I managed not to speak. I managed a smile, a Volterra smile, and I turned away, starting back up the hill.

Demetri would expect me to take part in the burning, but the most difficult and risky parts of the job had been done. He could hardly complain if I wanted to skip the light work. From the corner of my eye, I saw Chelsea uncap her flask again, but Benjamin's voice, flushed and excited, said, "Please, madam. Allow me."

I closed my eyes. _Don't flaunt yourself, you fool._ Did he want to end up like me? He did. I already knew that he did.

Bella didn't seem to be paying attention. She was at my elbow, trotting to keep up on her shorter legs as the flames took flight behind us. She didn't open her lips or touch my arm, but I got the impression that she wanted to talk to me about something. I hoped it was what had happened here, with Eric and Thomas. I didn't want to hear what she had to say, but at the same time, I had all my own words inside my chest, and I had to get them out of me.

"Is it over?" she asked quietly, voice full of leashed tension.

"Mostly," I said.

"Edward..."

I rounded on her. "What?" I asked.

"Why are you angry?" she said.

I shook my head, suddenly sick of her. I'd tried to protect her. I'd tried to protect Benjamin, but he would come to Volterra and be proud as a peacock about it.

"Edward, I had to," she said, the words coming from far back in her throat. "You know I had to."

"You didn't have to like it!" I shot back. Rolfe's memories gnawed me, brighter and worse than anything Felix had ever thrown my way: running feet, snapping hands, a hiss. As far as he could tell, she'd gotten as much of a thrill out of killing another vampire as Benjamin had. She'd looked exhilarated. She'd looked like one of us.

Why should I have expected anything different? This Bella was a vampire. Vampires liked blood and they liked to kill their own kind; it was the only true challenge that most of us ever experienced. I should have expected nothing different. I should have expected nothing better.

The dim light was like a finger tracing the outline of her face, the reflections in her eyes, sinking into the folds of her gray hood. She didn't contradict me. She didn't hiss back at me that I was wrong, scold out some explanation that I'd overlooked.

"I don't want to like it," was all she said.

_When you heard what happened in Budapest, you looked at me like I was a monster,_ I thought it but I couldn't say it._ Please, by God, do it again._

"What happened?" I asked. "What's different now? You weren't like this when it was Oleg."

She actually looked surprised that I'd mentioned it. She was surprised about something, at least.

"That was different," she said.

"How?" I asked. Any answer would do, anything to prove to me that I had only misunderstood things, that Rolfe's memories were wrong or that I was wrong about them. "How was it different?"

"Back then I..." she said, too quickly. "It doesn't matter. I don't think I can help it, Edward."

Intellectually, I could process it. Intellectually, I could imagine how someone who didn't have a choice might as well enjoy what she did, how someone trapped in a frustrating situation could enjoy expressing those frustrations in destructive ways. I could remember what it felt like to get the better of another vampire or a wicked human and put an end to him. I'd felt that satisfaction myself once. Even my brother Emmett entertained similar thoughts from time to time.

But there was more to me than thoughts. I wasn't a disembodied brain in a jar. I was myself.

I hardly looked at her for the rest of the night. Demetri plotted us a more direct route home than the one we'd taken during our search. Benjamin proved not fool enough to come with us. I poured my concentration into the area around us, listening for human thoughts. Demetri seemed to understand the idea that we could move more quickly when no one was watching, but he did not fully trust me, and we interrupted our journey with stretches of human-paced movement more often than we truly needed to. In all honesty, I couldn't blame him. I wasn't sure I trusted myself either.

I could feel her near me. She was waiting for me to do something, but I couldn't. I just couldn't...

We stopped for the day in a small town just off the highway. Volterra wasn't far, but we were simply out of time, and Demetri had hidden here before, in the storm drains. At least they weren't sewers.

I must have spent hours just staring at the walls, trying to ignore Rolfe's latest fantasy about Adrienne. He had to know on some level that it was never going to happen.

I wasn't sure exactly when. It might have been hours later, when I saw my own face in an ice-clear thought, dark and preoccupied.

"No," I said, fixing Demetri with as hard a gaze as I dared.

He looked over at me. "You should stay quiet. We're well hidden, but we can be overheard."

"I can do this," I insisted.

"Don't make me tell you twice."

"Don't tell Caius not to send us out together any more," I told him. "I can handle it."

Demetri eyed me for a moment.

"You were thinking about me. It draws my attention," I explained. "I wasn't spying on you."

"You get distracted," Demetri said, nodding toward Bella, who was still watching.

"I am supposed to pay attention to what my newborn is doing," I defended myself. "That is partly why I was sent with her in the first place."

Demetri shook his head. _Aro and his projects..._ he thought, bordering on disrespect. It got in the way of the mission, to his mind, and nothing that got in the way of the mission had any business coming along.

"Don't!" I hissed before I could look away from Demetri. He narrowed his eyes and I turned to the female on his left, "I mean you," I told Chelsea.

_Fool_, she thought bitterly. So she was charged with breaking up fights in the field as well. I would have to remember that. It seemed she didn't like being caught no matter where she was. But there was something in her thoughts, half-hidden and flickering like a dry leaf caught on a stone. It was—

There were footsteps on the street above us, and we all fell silent. I listened. The thoughts were unsuspecting, and the human soon passed by.

Demetri was looking from Bella to me and back. He didn't like the idea of my reading his thoughts, but he liked the idea of being caught even less. _Why do you want to watch?_ he asked mentally.

I must have looked confused.

_You've made it clear that you don't like what we do, and you never miss a chance to remind anyone within hearing that that cloak you wear was forced on you_. He made no effort to hide his distaste. _Seeing your mate perform her duty clearly upsets you. Why put yourself through it?_

I looked at Bella. She'd been watching us. She hadn't stopped.

I would rather see it than not see it. I knew that. Knowing how bad it was also meant knowing that it wasn't any worse.

Demetri was serious. For all his dislike of me, he knew that I was useful when I put my mind to it. Having Bella around made me less so, and Demetri could not see any good side to that.

_Afton didn't come along just because Chelsea is with us_, Demetri pointed out.

"That's different."

_Isn't that why you picked her in the first place?_ Demetri asked, imagining the blankness in his own mind whenever he tried to get a fix on Bella with his tracking abilities. _So that you wouldn't have to know every last thing she does?_

I blinked. I hadn't thought of it that way. Back in Forks, I'd liked that Bella could surprise me, delighted in every new thing I'd learned about her—and that I'd learned them in the ordiary way, by seeing and hearing things, putting a mental image together piece by piece rather than just seeing and hearing it on day one. But I'd wanted to know what she was, not imagine what she might be. Through all of our courtship, I'd known there were still mysteries, but I had never supposed that I might be _wrong_.

But I could have been. The human Bella might have harbored impulses every bit as vicious as the ones the new Bella had shown tonight. Most humans did.

In its way, it was almost as disturbing as the execution. _I might have been wrong about her_. What if I'd never really known who she was?

How would I find her again?

No... No, Carlisle couldn't read thoughts and Esme couldn't read thoughts, but they each knew who the other was. The same went for Alice and Jasper. I'd seen their mental images of each other, and they had never seemed off. I hadn't been looking, specifically, but I surely would have noticed. I wasn't wrong. Demetri was.

"It isn't like that," I said quietly. It was the only answer I had for Demetri's question.

_You aren't really her mate, are you?_ Demetri asked, and it was more than a smug statement. It was the mildest kind of threat that passed for threat in Volterra. He was telling me that he knew my secret but not yet saying whom he planned to tell.

My mouth was half open to deny it, but something must have shown on my face. _He can't be,_ Demetri thought to himself with a smirk._ He's as indignant as any impotent man_.

I found that I was breathing hard. I could think of no way to respond that would not be seen as utterly childish, and it was completely infuriating. Telling him he was wrong, knocking his jaw out of joint, sitting down next to Bella and sulking there all day—everything would make him, and anyone around us, think that he was completely right about me.

Bella was watching us. One glossy lock of dark hair had come loose from her hood to rest against the breast of the gray cloak she'd pulled around her to absorb the light. She'd been watching me since we'd left Volterra, I reminded myself, and I had a sinking suspicion that I'd been wrong about why.

"You are not in a position," was all I could say, "to know a thing about it."

It was what my human parents would have taught me to say. I knew it without having any specific memory to place. Their imprint on me was like the lines water leaves in a streambed long after had gone dry.

Demetri's eyebrows lifted and he looked away. If this could be called a battle, I'd found a way to win it. It was true: A man did not presume to know what went on between another mated pair. If there was a Volterra etiquette about these things, then Demetri had broken it—or he would have if he'd asked the question out loud. Someone like Felix or Adrienne might not have cared that he'd been caught in this way, but Demetri was not Felix.

And he wasn't right about us, not completely. Bella wasn't my mate, no, not the way these Volterra vampires thought of it. What she _was_, though...

I'd assumed that Bella had been looking for guidance and protection—and it was true that she needed both—but she had seen me show weakness. Perhaps she'd been worried that I'd be the one to break. Perhaps she'd been looking for the moment when she'd need to jump in and prevent me from ruining us both. That moment had not come.

Yes, I might have been wrong about my vampire Bella. I might have been wrong about the human Bella as well. But this girl with us, she was on my side. I was not wrong about that.

But I did not know what to make of it.

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drf24


	27. Ch 26 Protected

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is a fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

So I was reading the _Outlander_ series by Diana Gabaldon, and I thought, "You know who would like this? Current and former _Twilight_ fans." The premise is that a WWII nurse falls back in time two-hundred-odd years to Highland Scotland just before the Rising of 1745. It's relatively thorough historical fiction with a consistent time-travel mechanic, and the main romance has the type of divided intensity that brought most of us to connect with Edward and Bella. It's also a little smarter and the main characters are a little more independent and sane. I particularly recommend the second book because there's more action and a big Scotsman throws a French guy into a fountain. Things get a little stupid in book four, but if there's any group of readers who can deal with _that_ and keep coming back...

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"Believe it or not, it's possible to lie with your thoughts." –Alice, _New Moon_

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The words in his head added up to anger and to fear, but beyond everything else, drowning it all out—

_Damn._

"Well?" she prompted.

I didn't need ask what she meant. "He's normal," I told her.

"Shit."

"Don't swear."

"What are you, my mother?" she paused. "And good God, Edward Cullen, but don't you dare say _any_ version of 'well, kind of.'"

I clamped my teeth together. I didn't know whether to be glad that she was trying to make me laugh or angry that she was jeopardizing our chance to build a good reputation here.

_Well he has been doing enough mother henning,_ Rolfe was thinking as his eyes drifted down Bella's elegant shape, _but I bet he makes up for that with his—_

God, evil puns. Evil puns and no way to shut them out. It was going to be a long eternity if this was what passed for humor in Volterra. At the same time, I couldn't help but smile. Emmett had done a number on the 1998 Lewinski scandal. He'd tended to stick more with drycleaning jokes, but there had been a few blue dress puns mixed in. And that was nothing to his speculations on Nixon's "tricky dick."

We'd reentered the city from the south and were on our way back to the compound. It had been well past twilight, so hadn't needed the shadow-paths that Marcus had built into the city. I'd only managed to learn a little more about them in Demetri's thoughts, but I have them all sooner or later. We would be doing this relatively often, after all. And unless Demetri convinced the masters otherwise, Bella would be coming with me.

At this time of day, we could simply walk up to the main entrance and go in through the front door. In other cities, the sight of robed men and women moving in and out of a retrofitted office building might have attracted attention, but the citizens of Volterra were used to it. I'd even spotting a few of the young people wearing cloaks themselves.

Bella stayed close as we skirted the edge of the piazza, the hem of her cloak brushing against mine with each step. For some reason, our fight after the battle had made her want to stay nearby. I didn't mind, for all that things were still tense between us. It was just as well. It wasn't as if she had any way to avoid me.

I knew I was being irrational, but I also knew I couldn't help it. I couldn't reconcile what I'd seen her do with the woman I thought she was. The sweet and sorrowful vampire girl I'd supposed that I'd come to know over the past few months was _not_ the sort of person who could kill someone in cold blood. She just _wasn't_ and I couldn't find a way to explain to myself that it wasn't all some elaborate trick.

Even reminding myself that I'd done as much when I'd killed Gianna only helped so much. Intellectually, I knew that her hands were as forced as mine. It was like seeing every piece of a small jigsaw puzzle, perfectly aligned and ready to be connected, but I just couldn't make them all fit. I just didn't know what to _do_ about it.

It would come to me sooner or later. Now was the time to put personal problems aside. Demetri would need to report to Aro and Caius, though I knew Aro would also want my own rather more complete account of the event.

It was strange, but I almost felt relieved as I felt the walls of the compound close in around us. I offered Bella my arm, suddenly finding that I wasn't as angry with her as I'd thought.

Behind us, Rolfe knocked his hood down to his shoulders with a swish. "Hell it's good to be back," he said. "Not that I mind a good romp, but I hate all the damned hiding."

"Well we can hardly enforce the law if we're breaking it ourselves, Rolfe," Demetri said simply, and I couldn't help but agree with the sentiment. I could see just enough of the side of Chelsea's face to tell that she was smiling too.

I might as well take the good with the bad, I found myself thinking. I'd spent most of my life faking human. Perhaps it would be good for me to live in a large community where I would not need to. They were my own kind, after all. And I had to admit that the idea of protecting humans from criminal vampires appealed to me.

Bella took my arm, her hand tightening on my wrist, "Is Aro angry?" she asked. "About Marcell, I mean."

I knew Aro's mental voice well enough by now to be able to pick it out of the dozens of vampire and human minds in the building. "I can't tell," I said. "Right now he's thinking about our mission report." I tugged my hand away, suddenly irritated. The walls that had seemed almost comforting a minute earlier now pressed in like a yoke around my neck. Rolfe's seeming resemblance to my brother dissolved; he was a brutal thug. Felix was worse. Jane was a monster. Chelsea was a parasitic hag. And then there was her, my beautiful murderess.

I shook myself, as if trying to escape from a dream, and reminded myself not to make things worse than they already were. We headed toward the audience chamber. "Let Demetri do the talking," I murmured. "Answer any question the masters put to you, and honestly, but don't—"

"—draw their attention," she finished for me.

"Yes," I said. Did she have to sound like a schoolchild tired of her lessons?

A few heads turned as we made our way down the hall, but not many. I noted that Gilda in reception seemed pleased enough to have moved to the evening shift and wondered idly who'd taken Gianna's place on mornings.

Caius and Aro were waiting for us in the audience chamber. I could see Alec and a few of the others on hand, but there was no need for the full guard to gather. These things happened all the time. There was only one part of our mission that had not been routine.

Demetri bowed gracefully and recited the words he'd deftly assembled in his mind on the journey back. Aro could have taken it all directly from his thoughts, but Caius had no such luxuries. I saw Aro's eyes flicker at Demetri's first mention of the witness Benjamin. This must have happened before, I realized. I had hardly been alone in supposing that Aro would want to meet our talented young friend.

"And Edward invited this young man to visit Volterra?" Aro asked.

"Yes, Master," answered Demetri.

Aro pretended to consider this for a moment. In reality, he was wondering how quickly he could make up an excuse to touch my skin and see Benjamin's secondhand thoughts for himself. "And what was your impression of him?"

This was it, I noticed. The pressure of Bella's hand on my arm stayed at the back of my consciousness, but watching Demetri's mind at work was simply too enticing. That was how they kept Demetri in line. His pride was his work, and Aro had just consulted his professional opinion.

"Young, Master," answered Demetri.

Aro paused, seeming to consider this. But he wasn't thinking about Benjamin. His eyes fell on me. I tried not to let anything show on my face. He'd know soon enough anyway.

_Come here_.

I disengaged Bella's hand from my arm and walked toward him. There were a few confused thoughts in the crowd—not all of the Volturi were comfortable with my tendency to approach their beloved master—but I had no reason not to obey. The more the guard saw me responding to unvoiced orders, the less they'd question me for doing so.

Aro's hand found my shoulder. He was making less of a show of it these days. I held still, watching his reaction to the memories of our trip, both my own and the ones I'd picked up secondhand from Benjamin.

_You handled that well enough, young Edward_, he thought. I had to admit, I was surprised. After all, I'd all but warned Benjamin not to accept the invitation.

_And now he will come when he is willing and not before_, Aro thought back. _For now,_ _he seems to mind the law well enough_. But these were only his surface thoughts. The undercurrent was deeper, darker... Aro was too canny to allow me to see anything that he did not want me to see—normally. But now his mind was drawing in around my memories of Benjamin like a child sucking on a cherry...

_Good_, I thought, with more bitterness than I would have admitted to out loud. Let Benjamin draw his fire. Let Benjamin be the object of his tireless attention.

Aro released my shoulder almost carelessly, eyes lost in their own film. If he'd seen my shattered fantasy of a plan, he gave no sign of it. The whole thing couldn't have taken ten seconds. I backed away from the throne, mindful of the swish of my cloak behind me. The Volturi dignity had to be maintained, after all, even in the confines of our own keep.

Bella had picked up some of it herself, I noticed. Her face seemed blank, as if she were far away, but when I came near, she put her hand on top of my wrist in an almost possessive gesture.

My eyes jerked up as Adrienne rather vividly pictured herself pulling Bella's hair out. Once I realized what had happened, I allowed myself a quiet smirk. Benjamin might have doubted that Bella and I were together, but Adrienne did not.

"Well played," I whispered into the hood of her cloak as we left the hall and passed out of earshot.

She looked up at me. "You noticed that?" she asked, surprised.

"Of course," I said, "but try to remember that it's about keeping you safe. It would hardly serve if you got your eyes scratched out for your trouble."

She frowned. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Adrienne," I pointed out, confused. Then my mind cleared. "So it wasn't her? You made someone else jealous?" I had to admit, it was surprising. I was used to bored high school girls drooling over my good looks, but I hardly stood out among the guard.

"Edward, I don't—" She closed her eyes. "I want to ask you something," she said.

I was still confused, but what could I do. "All right," I said. "Ask away."

"I thought it was a Volterra thing, but it's really a vampire thing, isn't it? All the acting."

"What do you mean?" I asked, turning to face her in the hallway.

"Emmett and Rosalie were the perfect high school power couple," she explained. "She was the goddess in the supermodel makeup and he was the musclehead jock. They were everything except actually a cheerleader and a quarterback."

I laughed again. "Emmett wasn't doing that much acting, I'm afraid. He was always the musclehead jock. It's only that they didn't have a word for it until the sixties or so." She didn't laugh back. I hadn't really expected her to. "But yes, it's a vampire thing," I said. "We would be pretending no matter where we were, no matter with whom we lived."

She laughed a bit at that, only a sound in the back of her throat, and not a happy one.

"So how can you tell what's real and what's made up?" she asked me at last. She shook her head. "I take it back. I know how _you_ can tell," she said, gesturing to my right temple.

"Actually, that doesn't always work," I said. "Even when people tell flat-out lies, their thoughts don't always give them away. Think about an actor getting into character," I suggested. "If people's thoughts are even loosely along the lines of the roles they've taken on, I wouldn't necessarily know that anything was wrong. And after a while, they'd start to believe in it themselves. I suppose that what people do becomes part of what they are, whether they mean it or not."

This didn't seem to please her. "So if you and I stay here long enough, we'll become real Volturi."

"There are worse things to become," I said without hesitation.

Her hand on my wrist clamped down hard. "Ow!" I said. "What was that for?"

"Say it again," she told me, a funny intent look in her eyes.

"Say what again?"

"What you just said just now."

"That there are worse things than being one of the Volturi?" I asked. She sobered. "It's true, Bella. There are." She looked away. But she hadn't taken her hand off my wrist, so perhaps she wasn't as mad at me as all that. "There is violence here, but it is not meaningless violence."

"Tell that to Felix."

"All right, some of it is meaningless violence, but not the bulk of it. Not what we had to do."

"Not what we had to—" She ran a hand over her eyes. "Edward, how the _hell_ can you think that—"

There was a sound, filtered through layers of rock, steel and drywall, but it was unmistakably a howl. Bella stiffened as if it had sent a chill up her spine. I wasn't quite as at ease as I'd have liked to appear myself.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Marcell," I said simply, trying to rewrite my plans for the evening in my head. The tunnel that we used for combat practice was further down and not exactly soundproof. The echoes down there would be hell itself. The sun was almost down, though. I would take her to the roof, then, the one with Sulpicia's garden on it. It would be harder for us to hear him with a few more floors in between. To the humans outside, he'd barely be the settling of the city.

"Is he hungry?" she asked.

I shot her a look. Even she had to know that that wasn't a cry of hunger or frustration. Then I reproached myself. She was only hoping that it was no more than hunger. "He may have been," I said. "Maybe he attacked one of his keepers. Maybe he asked for food too many times. I don't know. But that's Jane's doing."

"Jane?"

"They need to break him of his bloodlust, and they can't just wait for him to learn to control it," I explained. "So there's Jane."

Irritated. Why was I so irritated? I looked Bella up and down. It wasn't her, per se, but it happened when she was near. There didn't seem to be a thing wrong with her, but for some reason, when she wasn't around, my disquiet did not weigh on me so. Some days I even forgot how disturbing I found Jane. I'd seen mentally retarded adults and children, heard their underdeveloped thoughts, but Jane's malformed little goblin of a mind made my skin crawl.

"Wait, so Jane is torturing Marcell? Right now?"

"She's using her gift on him if that's what you mean," I said. Torturing probably wasn't the right word. Jane's actions did have a purpose, after all. "Bella, if you want to get away from—"

She was gone. I knew I was fast, but my eyes could barely track her leaving.

_Damn_ was all I had time to think before hurrying after her.

She was fast, but her speed came from her strength, and we were in tight, twisting corridors. I was on her heels in seconds. Even so, I didn't catch up with her until we were halfway down the stairs to the cell where she'd been kept back in March. She hesitated and I managed to get my arms around her.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Let me go!"

"I didn't exactly mean that as a rhetorical question, Bella," I said. I'd restrained her bodily before, but always when she'd at least partially wanted me to. Any second, she'd figure out that she could throw me halfway down the highway to Florence and wouldn't even need to find a window to toss me out of.

"I'm going to go help!"

"How?" I demanded. "There isn't anything you can do, Bella. If you stop Jane, Marcell will attack you."

"You don't know that," she said simply, and then she shoved me into the railing and ran away.

"Yes, Bella, I do," I muttered into the air and then hurried after her.

I caught up with her just outside the cells. Marcell, it seemed, hadn't wanted to go back in.

"Get away from him," Jane was ordering in the placid tones of someone who knew she must be obeyed. She'd momentarily forgotten that Bella was immune to her principal means of ensuring obedience.

"Bella, you should do as she says," I added quickly. Marcell's thoughts barely merited the word. All I could pick up were disjointed words and images, most of them related to the aching thirst in the back of his throat—and what he wanted to do to anyone in his way.

I couldn't help it. I looked at Jane.

_What does he expect me to do?_ Jane's reaction to my staring was bitter and languid, like bile flowing through a tube.

"I expect you to do your duty," I hissed back, "as Master Aro told you." But Bella caught my attention before Jane could reply.

"Easy there," she was saying in a soft, low voice like cool water flowing over mossy stones. I'd forgotten how lovely her voice could sound. I saw Marcell lift his head, still staring at the dusty wall in front of him, but his neck had turned, as if he were a spaniel cocking an ear toward that friendly voice. "It's going to be all right," I heard her say, and even I wanted to believe it.

Marcell turned his eyes first and then his head, neck and upper body shifted toward her. He was looking at her now, eyes glowing like live coals in his broad, stony face. This was the first chance I'd had to see him since his turning. His neat lawyer's hair was snarled and dusty, and his plain, rounded body now seemed burly and compact with power. His face was completely empty, a mask. I saw Bella smile. "It's all right," she said again, sweet and soft, "I'm not going to let her—"

There was a snarl and a shout and a snapping sound as the gray shape that was Marcell threw itself through the scanty feet of air and drove Bella behind him into the far wall, bringing up one hand for an instinctive strike to her throat.

I didn't know if it was that Marcell was more heavily built than my Bella or that his human blood just wasn't as potent, but I was across the room with both hands at his neck before I'd even thought to lift my feet. I hadn't been able to catch Bella when she wanted to outrun me, but this man's movements were no obstacle. I snaked my arms around his shoulders, breaking his leverage. A thick, feral snarl ripped through both our bodies as my teeth clashed against the moving metal of his throat.

I tried to keep my head but the only thought that came through clear was that I could not let go, must not let go until I'd broached his windpipe and left him gasping and helpless.

But I did not need to. Underneath me, Marcell's body doubled over and dropped. I stepped back, watching him clutch at nothing, feet beating in agony against the floor tiles as he let out an unholy screech.

Jane broke eye contact long enough to glare at me. _This is your damned fault_, she managed to think, seeing the deep scrapes on the newborn's throat. Most of Jane's mind was busy with images of Aro's displeasure. I had just damaged her master's new toy. He'd have a scar before he was a week old. And from my venom, no less.

"Get _her_ out of here," she said simply, not dignifying Bella with a look. For once, Jane and I were of the same mind. I grabbed Bella by the elbow and pulled her back toward the stairwell.

I breathed in and out. Bella had just gotten in the way of Jane's orders. If Aro decided to punish her, it wouldn't be pretty. And since he couldn't just sic Jane on her, he might be tempted to get creative. I closed my eyes and hoped that he would simply attribute her actions to feelings of kindness toward her fellow newborn.

And then I followed my own warning. If I could make myself _believe_ that that was why she did it ...maybe Aro would too. It unnerved me, the thought of bending my own mind. But then...

I'd said I'd protect her. I'd said I'd protect her no matter what it took, and I'd failed her too many times.

It was true, anyway. She'd been trying to help Marcell. She'd even said so. She didn't like Jane, but she just didn't understand. She hadn't really gotten in the way, hadn't hurt Jane or Marcell, not even after he'd attacked her. I'd done that. I'd done it myself.

By the time I pulled her through the door out onto the roof, I was sure that there was no other way to see it.

Then I realized that Bella had been too quiet. I cursed myself. I should have checked sooner.

"What..." she trailed off, a little breathlessly. Damn. "What..."

"I told you," I said, eyes adjusting to the purple shadows angling down on us. "He's normal." And she wasn't. She never had been. "Now let me see."

"See?"

"Let me see," I said as softly as I could, trying to pull her arm away from her neck, but she kept raising her hands to push mine away. "Let me see," I repeated, more firmly this time, finally catching both her hands in my own. She allowed me to pull them down and out of the way. I transferred both her hands to one of mine and ran two fingers down each side of Bella's throat. She seemed to shiver a little but was otherwise unharmed.

"You protected your neck." I couldn't help the note of pride in my voice. She'd remembered our lessons.

She met my eyes then and her lips spread into a wavering grin. Her shoulders shook and I realized that she wasn't hyperventilating.

"Laugh all you want," I said simply, letting my hand slip to her shoulder. "It just means your throat's still in one piece."

She laughed out loud then, a sickly, shivering chuckle. "Oh Edward..."

I watched her carefully. She was still a newborn herself, after all. She'd managed far better than I'd expected on the mission, but there was no telling what she'd do if something really set her off.

Bella slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor of the roof, looking out. The pale evening light and the glow from the few taller buildings gleamed like mother-of-pearl against her skin. I looked over my shoulder to see Sulpicia's garden stretching out behind us, artful in the limited space. Whether it was presence of mind or just experience, Aro's wife had chosen all night-blooming flowers. I recognized **one ****set of tight white blooms **and smiled.

"You've been up here before?" I asked.

She nodded. "Renata and I came out here." She cast me a meaningful eye. "Sulpicia prefers all-natural fertilizers."

I didn't quite know what to say to that. "Beauty has its price, I suppose."

"Yes," she said quietly. "I suppose."

"That scent," I said. "That's **_Allium_********_neapolitanum_**."

"That scent is three kinds of cow poop," she told me, resting her head on her folded arms. "I swear that stuff was blended like something out of Starbucks."

"I mean the flower," I insisted. "You might know it by its common name, 'Star-of-Bethlehem,'" I added, "or 'Naples Garlic.'"

She lifted her head and looked at me. "Really?"

I nodded.

A smile cracked her lips. "Who knew the old bitch had a sense of humor?"

"Careful," I said.

She shrugged.

"Stop it," I said again, crouching down in front of her. "What good will it do for you to be immune to Aro's power if he can condemn you out of your own mouth?"

She was going to roll her eyes. I could see it.

"You've got to break yourself of this habit, Bella. You're from a time and place where people make jokes about the principal of the school and the president of the country and no one bats an eye. If there's any real bile behind it, it's interpreted as a harmless way for malcontents to blow off some steam." I shifted my hands to either side of her neck, cupping her face. "Well here and now, it could get us killed." She tried to look away. "Sooner or later, you'd say something too serious for people to ignore, and action would be taken, officially or otherwise."

"That's my problem," she said sullenly.

"Bella!" I snapped. I didn't know what bothered me more, the idea that she'd be so cavalier with her life or that she seemed to think I wouldn't care. "Do you remember what Demetri said to Eric?" I asked.

"I remember everything."

"Good," I said, letting go of her neck. "Then remember that they'd kill me too." If she didn't care about herself, perhaps she'd care about that.

She regarded me for a moment. "And if I end up fooling myself?" she asked. "If I end up like your actors in character and believe my own lies?"

"You'll be alive to believe them," I said without hesitation.

She was quiet for a moment. The light had gone dim while we'd been talking. Evening was giving way to night. I could see her as clearly as ever, but some of the color was leeching away, the rich brown of her hair fading into dark gray.

"I always thought that being a survivor meant you had to be strong," she said. "Uncompromising. Renee always called herself a survivor. Mom never had to survive anything like this, though." She shook her head and something about it pained me. "Being a survivor doesn't mean sticking to your principles, does it? It means giving them up."

"Not all of them," I said quietly. "But you're right. You have to give things up."

"The ones that get in the way."

"Name-calling isn't a principle, though," I pointed out. "It's pride." I regarded her for a moment, still and beautiful as a statue in the dim. "You have other things to be proud of, Bella."

She didn't shrug but she didn't look at me either. "So what are we going to do about Marcell?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well we're not just leaving him down there."

I sobered. "Aro has ordered me not to interfere."

"He didn't order me," she answered.

"He will if he thinks it's crossed your mind to act," I said. "Besides, what would you do for him? You hardly showed yourself to be a competent newborn-wrangler just now."

"Maybe I would be if I had the right backup," she said. "Someone to get him to stay still long enough for me to reach him."

I shook my head. "Bella, I might be a good enough fighter, but I'm hardly—"

"I meant Renata."

I blinked. That ...was actually a good idea. Renata's gift would allow her to manage a newborn unharmed. Now that it had come to mind, I was starting to wonder why Aro hadn't made Renata Marcell's nursemaid in the first place.

"Aro might permit it," I said skeptically, "but he might decide that you and Renata are better off where you are. Caius thinks you're doing decently on the reading crew. Besides, what Aro wants is to turn more newborns like yourself. Figuring out how to raise the ones he has into civilized, well-adjusted vampires isn't likely to supplant that in his interest."

"But he wouldn't complain if we found out how to do it, right?" she asked hopefully.

I ran my fingers through my hair. "Bella, why do you even care about Marcell? He just tried to rip your head off."

"So did Jasper," she said.

"And look where that got us."

She was quiet for a moment. I found myself wondering what she was thinking _really_ wondering. The fact that her face seemed so much more expressive to me now only made my curiosity more intense.

"I'm still not used to thinking of it that way," she said.

"Thinking of what?" I asked.

"All this," she said. "When Jasper attacked me, you decided to leave," she said, "and something possessed you to lie about why." She closed her eyes and seemed to laugh but didn't. "And it wasn't even just the two of us who got hurt."

I smiled, but only halfway. Carlisle, Esme, my human Bella's parents... Yes, many people had been hurt by my foolishness.

"But I didn't know that until a while ago, okay?" she said. "I'm still used to thinking that you left because you wanted to."

"I didn't," I said.

"Well a lot of the time it still feels like you did." The words started soft and then hardened to a point. So that's what all this was about.

"I'm sorry about the other night," I said. I should have said it days earlier. I'd been taught to apologize when I'd done wrong, and I'd neglected that particular duty.

"You don't really mean it," she said.

"Yes I do," I insisted. "I mean it. I'm sorry."

"Not all the way down you're not. You didn't say anything that you don't still think is true."

The evening traffic hummed by in the streets beneath us, headlights reflecting off the walls of the building.

"I want to mean it all the way down," I said at last.

She licked her lips and turned toward the open access door. "Then I forgive you," she said tersely. The message was loud and clear: Her forgiveness went as deep as she thought my apology did.

Well I would mean it all the way down. I'd act sorry and I'd think sorry, and eventually that's what I'd become. If deep was what I wanted, I would learn to dig.

"Bella—" I said, catching the edge of the door just as it swung shut behind her.

"Don't worry," she said, and she managed to sound tired. "I'm not going anywhere without you."

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	28. Ch 27 Seeing

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

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"Imagine the joy young Alice alone would bring to our little household." –Aro, _New Moon_

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"So how did it go?" I asked.

She narrowed her eyes. "You know, Edward, I love this new confidence that you have in me."

"There's no need to be sarcastic."

"I mean it," she said. "A month ago, you barely let me out of your sight. Now you're hovering two floors up while I head off to the dungeons to babysit a vampire newborn."

"They're not real dungeons; don't be dramatic. You know perfectly well that Aro wanted me in the library. And this time you knew what you were getting into," I pointed out. She'd hit the nail pretty close to the head, though. Except for those dizzying few seconds when I'd thought she'd actually gotten through to him, seeing Bella reaching out to Marcell had been like watching a toddler jump into a zoo exhibit to pet the lions. "And you weren't alone."

"Well Renata was a fat lot of help," she said sulkily. "She'll probably never speak to me again. Ugh!" She shook her arms as if she'd just seen a bug on her sleeve. "Marcell ran straight at us for almost three hours. Nothing I said to him got through. And the way Renata's powers work, he just kept turning around and turning around. It was enough to make me think that she's not actually afraid of dangerous situations. She just doesn't want to get dizzy."

"Mm-hmm," I said, suddenly finding the ceiling very interesting.

"It was a complete waste of time."

I didn't say anything. That was some fascinating workmanship up there. What was that, baroque cornicing?

"You..." she trailed off.

Ah well. I'd expected her to figure it out eventually. She was pretty smart.

She swatted me across the shoulder. I only staggered a little. I'd take this over Felix in a snit any day. "You knew this was going to happen!"

"Give me some credit, Bella. I _told_ you this was going to happen." I was fairly sure that I shouldn't have enjoyed toying with her this much. It must have been one of the lost commandments: Thou shalt not gloat.

She snorted. "Did you ever know that 'I told you so' has a brother, Edward? His name is 'shut the hell up.'"

"I seem to recall something about sticks and stones," I said.

"Yes, well, you're lucky I'm not in the mood to go looking for some to throw at you." She picked up the edge of her cloak, scowling at a rip in the hem. If she'd still been human, I'd have had the luxury of thinking she'd just gotten it caught on something. Now I had to know it was Marcell's doing.

I stepped forward and let my hands rest on her upper arms. "I asked Aro if you and Renata could relieve Jane of her duties with Marcell for a few hours. Then I let you waste an afternoon," I said, meeting her sulky gaze. "I knew you had to try."

"You're lying," she said.

That wasn't the reaction I'd expected. "What?"

"I figured out how to tell when you're lying," she said matter-of-factly, eyes still searching my face. I noticed that they'd faded to the color of black amber, red flickering almost unexpectedly when she turned her head.

"I'm not lying," I said, amazed.

"Yes you are," she answered, as if she were telling me I had a fleck of dirt on my nose. "Don't worry, though. I can't tell about what." She turned and moved down the hallway toward our practice tunnel. I realized that my hands had fallen and were hovering near my sides. "What do you think?" she asked without turning around. "Loser of the first match has to tell Adrienne she had her tag sticking out all last night?"

I hadn't been lying about anything just then. I hadn't. She only thought she could read me. I supposed I ought not to disabuse her of this fantasy. I'd seen it too many times, with Carlisle's patients and with humans during the Depression. People with no real control over their circumstances sometimes invented imaginary control. If thinking that she could tell when I was lying made Bella's captivity more palatable to her, then why not let her think it?

There, a perfectly reasonable, practical conclusion. That had to be what was going on.

She shook out her sleeve again. "Ripped. Well if he was making himself dizzy running at Renata and me then he wasn't getting chewed or whatever it is that Jane does with them."

"That's kind of you, Bella."

"Always the tone of surprise," she muttered. "My mom used to ask something. There was a story in the newspaper about a kid who'd mailed a woman's lost wallet back to her and gotten a reward. The newspapers had made him out to be a big saint, like a hero. She'd told me that the kid was just doing what anyone should do, par for the course. After that, she started saying, 'Why are so many people amazed by par for the course?'"

"Have you ever swung par in your life?" I asked.

"Have you?"

"Emmett watched _Happy Gilmore_ and the next thing I knew, I was helping him break into golf courses after hours," I said. There was more to the story, except there wasn't. "The ritzier the better. The expensive ones make things more difficult."

"To break in or to shoot par?"

"More the second one."

She laughed, not loud, but she did laugh.

That was what was so eerie about this, I realized. Half our conversation had been ..._normal_, almost as if... Well, not as if we'd been standing outside Forks High on a cloudy day, but certainly as if we'd been standing in the hallway outside Carlisle's office. It was as if we weren't prisoners. It was as if we were outside, walking down an Italian street just after dark, blending in with hundreds of other people who weren't prisoners.

I'd seen a man once, a patient of my father's back in the fifties. His illness hadn't involved open bleeding, so I'd been able to help with him. He'd recovered from polio and become confined to a wheelchair. Over the months and years as he'd returned to Carlisle for medical care, I'd watched the blackness of his depression recede from his thoughts. He was never happy about being unable to walk, but life had become ..._livable_, at least the parts not directly affected by his condition. His food wasn't ash in his mouth. His children didn't please him any less.

Was that what life was going to be like? Would I be able to look at things without seeing them through the lens of my captivity?

Bella turned her head, still looking a bit miffed, and I realized with a bit of a chill that I had been lying after all. I hadn't _known_ that she would have to try to help Marcell before believing that it couldn't be done. I'd only _wanted_ to know.

Now I did. She hadn't given up on Marcell until she'd seen for herself that there was nothing she could do. That was who she was, and I hadn't known it until today.

"Aro doesn't need you just now, does he?" Bella asked, looking over her shoulder from down the hallway.

"What?"

"Usually when you stare off into space like that, it's because the old—" she closed her eyes, pursing her lips together. "It's because _Aro_ is thinking about sending Felix to drag you up to the library so that he can watch people read twenty different tabloids at once."

"You seem awfully critical of the process for someone so good at it."

Bella wrinkled her nose. As the most junior member of the guard, she pulled the least desirable shifts and the least interesting publications. Tabloids and small-town papers weren't cutting-edge journalism, but someone had to shovel through them.

"I told you. It was dumb luck."

"It wasn't," I answered. "Many nomads prefer rural areas. When human deaths are recorded, it's often in rural newspapers."

She shook her head. I might not have been able to read her mind, but it had still been interesting to watch. Aro and I had been near the door, so I'd only seen the back of her head as she'd pored over the print version—the only version—of the _Amish Times_. I'd seen her walk over to Randall and point to the obituary page. I'd heard her say, "This is the third one." One of his eyebrows had gone up, but he'd told her to fetch him the earlier copies.

Bella might have been unpopular, but Caius took his job too seriously to ignore a legitimate warning. He also enjoyed being feared, but that was another matter. For whichever reason, Randall, Demetri and Afton had spent a week in Ohio hunting the criminals, and the rash of "animal maulings" had ceased.

Bella had asked me, the night after they'd left, if I thought she'd gotten the two vampires killed. I remembered the creeping indecision in my mind. I remembered wondering whether the question came from guilt or bloodlust.

"No," I'd murmured back. "No, this wasn't real evidence left behind. Caius will tell Demetri to warn whoever it is to be more careful, give them a good scare. Unless it turns out to be someone who's been warned before." Of course, what constituted a "good scare" for a vampire tended to be a little extreme. I hadn't wanted to spell it out. I had wanted to protect her from it, for all that she'd seen as much and worse here in these halls.

She'd nodded and walked off with Renata. Something about Athenodora wanting something. It had been an excuse, I was sure of it.

"So did he do it this time?" she asked, pulling me out of my memories.

I rolled my eyes, "Bella..." I chided.

"What? You're the one who said I should try to find things that I like about them. Did he do it again?" she turned those wide, red-black eyes on me.

"Not exactly," I said. I had to admit that it had been one of my better ideas, even if it wasn't working out like I'd hoped. I still had spells, almost like flashes, when I felt all right about being in Volterra. At those times, I found that I had a certain appreciation for the courage of the Volturi guard and the great purpose it served. It was also easier to avoid dwelling on unpleasant things, such as the fact that I wasn't allowed to leave and yet remained in near-mortal danger every minute that I did not. This mostly happened when I was alone, though, or with other members of the guard. Being around Bella always brought me back to reality. She was a reminder of everything we had both lost.

I'd tried to do it on purpose, with some success, reminding myself of what Carlisle had told me about making the best of things here. I'd avoided the thoughts of the human employees and focused on how much I enjoyed watching Demetri's mind at work. And Aro... Aro, I had to admit, was another upside to Volterra.

"He can't predict World War three every day, Bella," I explained. My newborn still directed a quite significant—and reasonably justified, I had to admit—amount of anger at Aro, but she did think that the way he'd synthesized five dozen different news articles into one catastrophic prediction about the next fifty years was, in her words, "pretty neat."

The thing was, he actually did it quite a lot, just not on so large a scale.

"Well what did he do, then?" she asked. I rolled my eyes. "He did something. I can tell."

"Oh, you can read that in my face too?" I asked. I probably shouldn't have enjoyed tormenting her the way I did.

"I can, as a matter of fact," but she was joking this time. I could see that. It had been months since she'd been a mask to me, but almost without meaning to, I'd learned the meaning of each muscle underneath her skin. I knew when she meant what she was saying and when she was being sarcastic and I knew when she needed to feed, when she was frustrated with Renata, angry with Adrienne or just wishing she were free to leave. She didn't do that last one so much any more.

I'd spent hours in the library on the afternoon shift, turning my thoughts wherever Aro directed me to. It was a reflex now, and I found that I could almost shut my mind off and let everyone else flow through my head. The people hunting through the web sites and conventional newspapers worked as they always had, looking for disappearances, anything suggestive of our kind. As a law enforcement agency, the Volturi had a singular advantage: If the crime was undetectable in human accounts, then it wasn't a crime. There was no such thing as a criminal going uncaught because the people who didn't get caught weren't criminals.

Before, Bella and I had arrived in the spring, Aro had spent a few hours of each day reading a few favorites, mostly science compilations like _Nature_. He'd either have them read aloud to him or he'd keep his hand on the shoulder of one of the guard as they looked at each page, allowing him to see the unblurred photographs and diagrams through his assistant's thoughts. Now he didn't need to bother with slow sounds or other eyes. He could see every word at the speed of thought.

He'd been eager for another article on backscatter X-rays—he was wondering if the scanners' reaction to vampire skin would compel us to swear off air travel—but the pickings had been scarce, just one mention in a Korean tourism blog. Today, the prize had been the human interest stories.

"He did pay a bit of attention to one set of articles during the Western hemisphere shift," I told Bella. "_The_ _New York Times_ and _Chicago Tribune_ both ran pieces on child soldiers in the Congo."

"That'd be Damia on the _Times_ and was it..."

"Randall on the _Tribune_."

I told Bella about the article on the schools that certain NGOs and religious organizations had started for child soldiers who had managed to escape, be rescued or left behind. Aro had only taken interest in one of the schools, though, the one for girls.

Bella seemed intrigued. "Why that one? And they make girls into child soldiers?" She shook her head. "No, I guess it makes sense. There's difference between a grown man's upper body strength and a woman's, but not that much between boys' and girls'." Even less, I thought. Jasper had a few stories about women who'd dressed up as men and fought for the Confederacy. Some of them hadn't gotten caught until they'd gone to the infirmary with stomachaches and ended up giving birth.

"It's not only that," I went on. I would have thought that this would be an uncomfortable topic given our own situation, but Bella only seemed interested. "The thing is, the school was there because they don't take the girls back."

"Who doesn't take them back?"

"Their families," I said.

Bella blinked. "Why not?"

This was what I hadn't looked forward to explaining. The thing was, people in that part of the world feared the child soldiers. Guns rendered most physical frailties irrelevant, and youth and abuse made the soldiers unpredictable. People under the age of fifteen could do terrible things when improperly motivated. But the bottom line was that, horrible as they were, the child soldiers were warriors, and warriors held some position of respect in most of the area's modernized and traditional societies—so long as they were men. The boys who came back to their home villages were often broken and scarred by their experiences, I told Bella, but they got to come back.

The girls sometimes served in combat, but they did other things as well. Many of the recruiters actively preferred female child soldiers because they would fight, but they would also set up and break camp, cook for and take care of the boys and officers, and most of them had another use as well.

"The term is 'bush wives,' but the truth is that they're concubines, like the comfort women in World War Two, except they only seem to have to deal with one man each."

"So some of these girls are like sixteen?"

I shook my head. Bella didn't ask any more. We walked in silence until we came to the opening for our tunnel.

"Some of it is that the people are less willing to forgive women for violence than men, and some of it—"

"I know," she said, cutting me off. "So what did Aro think of all this?" she asked. "What was the point?"

"Remember what he said about China?"

"Too many young men and not enough young women means war," she rattled off. "What's that got to do with it?"

Aro had wondered if countries with large gender disparities would think to offer these girls or other female refugees a place, but he'd dismissed it. The numbers of girl ex-soldiers weren't high enough to make a serious dent in the problem, even if language and race had been a non-issue, and they hadn't. Personally, I'd been glad. I doubted any of these girls wanted to be taken to another place far from home where they would be expected to become a stranger's wife, even they got to spend a few token years growing up in a state-sponsored school first.

"He's been keeping his eyes open for things like that, but this is the first time there's been anything worth mentioning," I said, crouching down to pull the grate off the tunnel opening.

"What do you mean? Things like what?" she asked.

I blinked, halfway through the motion of laying the grate aside. "Things that would prevent the war," I said.

"Why would he want to do that?" she asked.

"Because it's a war," I told her.

"Yes, but what does he care if humans kill each other? And it would be in China, not Italy."

"World War Two started in China," I pointed out. "And Italy still has the gouge marks. But why wouldn't he want to stop humans from killing each other? He rather likes them."

She looked at me as if I'd grown another head. "Like with katsup?"

I laughed quickly, and covered my mouth. Oh but I was going to pay for that one. "Yes, Aro feeds on humans," I explained, "but he's also... Well have you been to the third floor yet?"

"With the art collection?" Her expression soured. "Renata and Adrienne and I went in there to clean once," she said.

"Caius won't have the human servants in there," I stressed. "He's sure that only a vampire would have the fine motor control to clean dust and soot from his precious paintings without removing any of the more delicate pigments."

"Then why do I never see any of you fine, delicate guys in there?" she asked darkly.

"I don't give the work orders, Bella."

She raised an eyebrow in my human Bella's best I-know-it's-not-your-fault-that-you-don't-have-to-go-through-PMS-et-al-but-I'll-blame-you-for-it-anyway-you-smug-male-son-of-a-bitch.

"The Volturi might not appreciate humans individually, but they have a certain appreciation for the idea of the human race. And they do like art," I said simply. "And what happened to Italy's art during the war was something that Caius would give his eyeteeth to never see again, and Marcus wasn't too keen on it either. Aro's the scientist, and while wars to tend to motivate countries to develop better weapons and medicines, they also tend to divert funding away from basic research and other projects."

I looked Bella in the eye. "When was the last time you feared a human weapon?" I asked. She managed not to roll her eyes this time. "Wars do little good for the Volturi, specifically. During any period of chaos, some vampires move in. They can feed more often that way," I explained. "The deaths are easier to conceal. The problem is that too many vampires don't care to give up the habit once things have settled down."

"So Aro didn't just predict the war. He's also going to try to stop it?" Bella murmured, as if to herself.

"If he can do so without revealing our kind, yes," I answered.

"Because it's in his interests," she followed.

"I suppose," I said, not sure where she was headed. "He might not be able to, of course. Seeing the patterns in human history is fairly powerful, but it isn't..." I frowned, looking for the words. There was something I was missing, something that Aro didn't have that I couldn't quite remember. "It isn't..."

"Oh," Bella said, realizing. "You mean that's why he wants A—"

There was a rush of air, and I was staring into two dark red-gold eyes as wide as eggs. They were all I could see of her face; something was covering her mouth, and it was one of my hands. The other was holding her head still as I pushed her backwards into the pillar.

I shook my head, quickly, feeling like a madman with the tremors. I closed my eyes, breathing in. "Don't," I said quietly and slowly pulled my hands away.

"Don't say her name?" she asked incredulously.

I nodded. Don't say. Don't think. Don't make it worse.

She stared hard at me, mouth open just a tiny bit. "Is it because Aro is always reading your thoughts?" she said, as if testing uncertain footing.

I nodded again, stepping away. I ran my fingers through my hair. I'd been doing it without thinking, the not-thinking. Somewhere far away I had Carlisle and Esme and two brothers and a sister and something else that was more precious than daylight that I could never, never think about. And I knew it was her. I hadn't forgotten. I wouldn't ever forget. I just couldn't afford to remember.

"So you don't even think about her," she said, as if counting it out on her fingers, "not unless you absolutely can't help it."

Of course I didn't. I owed her that much.

"Edward, he already knows about her. He's just going to make you think of it when he wants. He'll mention her himself or he'll ask you directly."

"But he'll have to," I said. "He'll have to go to the trouble. Nothing by accident. Nothing extra." Nothing extra about— Had to keep it away, but it was so _hard_.

I didn't turn around. She stepped in front of me, putting those chill-perfect hands on either side of my face. "Edward, this can't be good for you." She looked like was watching someone tear the legs off a spider. She looked like she was watching Chelsea.

"Edward, what you're doing to yourself, it isn't worth—"

"_Yes she is_." There was Alice ruffling Rosalie's hair, Alice knocking Emmett's remote out of his hand, Alice smiling at Jasper, Alice smiling at nothing, Alice making her brother laugh and he was me and there were snarling words echoing off the ceiling, the walls, the tunnel space below us, like the tearing of flesh from bone.

She was quiet. I'd knocked her hands away, and her eyes were squeezed shut like she thought I was Felix, but she hadn't moved.

I heard the soft sound that meant she was licking her lips, and smooth fingers found their way between mine. "I think about her every day," she said. She raised her hand until my fingertips were just barely touching her temple. "And I can, can't I?" I looked into her eyes, two perfect, half-clear stones. I'd never been able to see behind them. Neither could my master.

That smug smile that I'd been telling her to suppress all week suddenly looked like a river moving through the desert. It looked beautiful.

"I can do it for both of us," she whispered, words flowing around me.

I felt my thumb graze her cheekbone. The perfect vault. A smiling hiding place for precious things. I could give it to her to hold for me, and she would keep it safe.

_By God, I love you_, I thought.

"Can we stop talking about this?" I asked.

She let go of my hand.

"Where was I?" I asked like a man with a headache. Closest thing I could get to one without Felix's able assistance, anyway. I didn't like not feeling normal. I didn't like not feeling normal and I didn't like the way she was looking at me all of a sudden.

"Aro in the library with the revolver," she said. She was pretending it hadn't happened. Nothing had. Nothing had happened. By the time Aro touched me again, nothing would ever have happened. "I've been meaning to ask, what does he think about the debt issue?"

"He's concerned. He knew that Germany and France and Britain would be faced with some of the drawbacks of letting smaller economies into the European Union arrangement eventually, and he doesn't want them to abandon the project."

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Greece," I said. "The country is being allowed to default on some of its debt."

"Oh, I meant the one back home," she said.

I shook my head. "Americans," I said quietly. "So provincial."

"You're one too," she pointed out.

"True," I said. I was toying with her again, but not gracefully. I hadn't regained my step but I was on my way. "He doesn't think it's as serious of a problem as it's made out to be. He thinks that the politicians on both sides know what they have to do but are stalling so that they can pander to their more extreme constituencies before they enact a compromise plan."

"You're right," she said darkly. "He does have too much faith in humanity. But it ties in with China, doesn't it?"

I shook my head. "China is the U.S.'s biggest creditor but it isn't the only one. If you're looking for how a U.S.-based financial crisis would affect the war, he doesn't precisely know. It would mean more political and economic instability in general."

I felt my lips press together. There was a little more to it than that, actually. "I remember when I was a boy," I said. "The United States exported oranges to Valencia and beer to Germany. My father used to say that we'd send coal to Newcastle next. My human father," I corrected myself. And then the war had happened, and things had exploded. England and France had lost huge amounts of manufacturing power during those years, and American factories had picked up the slack and made the twenties roar. The country had grown to an empire on the ashes two great powers.

I'd been a bit preoccupied at the time, of course, but a few trips through college and as many required history courses had given me a pretty well-rounded understanding of the twentieth century. I'd lived a long life, and I'd spent almost every day of it with my own country at the top of the heap. What would I do if that changed? Aro had seen Rome rise and fall, and the Ostrogoths after that, but I was not Aro.

"He thinks the Americans' power is on the wane, even if they were to pay back all their debts tomorrow," I told her. I watched her face, trying to gauge her reaction. "He's seen it happen before, when empires start to fall. He's also seen it happen and nothing comes of it."

"But the U.S. isn't an empire."

I raised an eyebrow.

She leaned down to shove the tunnel entrance cover out of the way. "And here I thought one apocalyptic prophecy was bad," she said.

I was still shaky. Something had happened. I remembered what it was, but not all the way. I was agitated and I didn't fully understand why. I felt like everything was getting in. I felt like skin that had been rubbed with sandpaper.

"It's not a prophecy," I said, almost snapping. There was no need to add more drama to things that were already bad enough.

She looked at me, as if sizing me up. "Prediction, then," she said. "But I don't think prophecy is the wrong word. Tell you what, we'll get a tiebreaker. I'll ask Renata what she thinks the next time we go to see Marcell," she said as she slide through the opening and landed on the floor below.

I frowned. "Wait..." I said. Something was off, and I was coming from the other side of whatever had happened this afternoon. I was already kneeling beside the entrance, but I clapped my hands on either side of the opening and dropped my head down. "You're going back to see Marcell?" I asked.

"Of course I'm going back to see Marcell," she said. "You signed me up for it, didn't you? Now get down here before Caius changes his mind about guys cleaning the art collection."

"Things don't work that way here," I said, slipping through the opening and landing beside her. "You do what the Masters tell you to do, and they didn't tell you to go more than once." _There's nothing you can do for him, anyway_.

Bella shook her head, "Sooner or later, Marcell is going to start to come out of it, and it would be nice if someone besides Jane was there for him when he did."

"You don't have to," I said.

"That's nice. I'm still going to. Jane can go chew on sand if she doesn't like it."

I shot her another look.

"Oh come on," she said in a good imitation of weariness. "You're not going to tell me that Jane's not so bad, are you? Let me guess, she's really a watercolor connoisseur who never forgave the Nazis for burning down the Louvre or whatever and spends her spare time hugging orphans."

"No, she bothers me quite a lot, actually."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Really?" And then I witnessed the first real, non-smirk, unmitigated smile I'd seen all day. Her eyes drifted off to the left, and I tried to read all the emotions behind it, like the notes in a glass of wine: relief, pleasure, curiosity. I couldn't tell what was going on inside her head but I was suddenly sure it was beautiful.

"I can't get you to call her a bitch, can I?" she asked hopefully.

"Bella," I protested.

"Not even a jerk?" she asked. "Come on, jerk isn't even a swear word. People say it in front of their grandmothers."

"We should start practicing if we're going to be down here," I said.

"Call her a witch?" she asked. "Not the burn at the stake kind, the green makeup and obsessed with her sister's shoes kind. No one's going to get mad at you for that."

"Bella," I said warningly, "Jane is, for lack of a better word, Aro's favorite. She practically worships him and I think he might even hold her in some degree of real affection. He relies on her for more things than I have words for. We live in Aro's house, and I am not going to get into the habit of calling her names."

Bella was quiet for a minute. "You said he relies on her?"

"He knows her limitations but he trusts her to do his will. As far as I know, she usually considers his will to be her own."

"What makes her so different?" Bella asked carefully.

I tried to stifle my impatience. Learning more about the other residents of Volterra was important, too, I supposed, and I'd almost gotten used to Bella grilling me about every vampire who passed us in the halls. "She was turned too early, too young," I clarified. Her mind had still been growing. Once she was no longer human, it couldn't develop along a human path any more. All that mental potential—what Carlisle would have described with words like "neurons" and "myelination"—and nowhere to put it. "I'm not sure but I think that might be part of it, that the vampire had more room to work with when it grew inside her." I paused, thinking out loud. "I might have caught Aro thinking about Chelsea during Jane's development, but I might have it backwards." Yes, there was an image of Chelsea falling over backwards, juxtaposed with Aro's realization that Jane's gift worked on vampires.

"Chelsea? So she, what, tried to make Jane love Aro and ended up frying her brain?"

"I don't know, Bella. Aro was only thinking about it for a few seconds." And I wasn't sure that Jane's brain hadn't been fried from her transportation alone, but Bella was in a mood and I was not going to encourage her. "Are we finished with the third degree for tonight?"

"All right," she said, holding up her hands. I dropped into my best defense crouch and nodded to her that I was ready to begin.

She did the same, arms and legs and feet moving perfectly after our months of practice. She smiled, tight and confident and I thought I heard her mutter under her breath, "Jane, then."

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Sorry but this chapter is a bit talky, but there is more vampiring to come! Still taking concrit et al, but I'd like to add that I am also taking _suggestions_. I know where I'm taking the story plot-wise, but I'm butting my head against the wall on how to display more brutality. I don't want the random vamps-ripping-each-other-apart to get banal.

There's also a bit of author-on-board syndrome. Hey, who wants to guess what subject I teach? NO, YOU GUESS. I figure that as long as I don't have Edward crusading against Wikipedia's ban of American punctuation, then we're probably all right. (If placing periods and commas inside quotation marks causes misquotation and factual errors, then surely you can show me at least time when that actually happened. Oh, you can't? I WONDER WHY NOT. Illogical my callipygian hindquarters!)

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	29. Ch 28 Telling

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

This chapter took so crazy long for two reasons: One, I was working on more than one chapter. Two, one of my jobs picked up steam to the point where I'd have to keep so late that I started typing my dreams into the computer. Take it as a sign of dedication. Forget those wimpy pro authors; Twifans keep typing even when their hands feel like they've been set on fire.

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"When she included Maggie, for instance, Liam was very territorial." –Carlisle, _Breaking Dawn_

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Her eyes flickered back to mine, deep-orange red and dark with thoughts I couldn't see.

"Will it work?" she asked.

I turned it over in my hands and the light gleamed off the smooth glass casing and perfectly molded surgical steel. The needle gauge was thicker than I would have liked, but at least it was strong enough to reach a human heart.

"I think so," I said. "There's no reason why it shouldn't."

I couldn't read her thoughts, but it had already fallen across her face like a shadow. For us, there was nothing bright about hope. It seemed so simple to watch her purse her lips, see the delicate muscles tighten underneath her unmarked skin. She was really very expressive now that I knew what to look for.

"And if it doesn't work," I said carefully, "or if Aro doesn't allow it, I'll do it the old-fashioned way. I won't lose control again." I meant it, and she could tell that I meant it. For all that I didn't mourn Gianna, I did wish that I'd thought of the syringe sooner. It might have headed a few things off.

Her blood-amber eyes watched me carefully. She wasn't convinced. I tried not to conclude too much from that. After all, I'd given her many reasons to doubt me, and the stakes were high.

"Besides, even if this one doesn't turn out the way you did, this will mean that Aro can have any human he likes turned by any vampire he likes. He won't have to restrict himself to the few of us who can hold back," I added. "Maybe that will keep him interested long enough." Who knew? He might even want to turn new vampires using his own venom, create a new Volterra with an army of his own offspring and toss the rest of us out. I tried not to laugh. Crazy dreams were all that were keeping me sane these days. Crazy dreams and her.

"It might interest Aro, but Caius wants his newborn army," Bella said shrewdly. Understanding the tripled balance of motives and desires that set the pace and direction of our lives was one of the main challenges of living in Volterra, one that Bella was slowly mastering.

"He'll have it," I said quietly, thinking about all that would entail. Better Caius than some random coven that cared for nothing but conquest and blood, but better no one at all than Caius.

She was giving me one of her small, tense smiles, but I knew I would be able to perform my duties. After all, I wasn't trying to do it alone any more.

"Bella, this is how it works," I said, putting the syringe down and taking her by the shoulders. She'd told me how she liked the sound of my voice in her early days: soothing, she'd said, like a balm around the unpleasant truths I had to say. "We all leave our human lives behind, and we make the best of things from where we are."

She nodded again, wrapping her fingers around my wrist and the flickering light of calm in my mind went out. I was used to the gesture. I expected it, anticipated the steady pressure against my skin. It should have been soothing to me too, and perhaps it was, a bit, but for some reason, she always made me remember how much I hated being the masters' catspaw.

It was a good thing, I'd decided. When I wasn't around Bella, I was in denial. And, in Volterra, that was a dangerous state of mind. Life was more irritating when I remembered all the things that had gone wrong, but at least I could see it for what it was.

"They'll want you back at the library soon," I said quietly. Bella was still working early evening in Volterra. Higher-ranking vampires could use this time to roam about the city, mixing with the human crowds that would not be present in the dead of night. I offered her my arm and she took it. This was the way I'd been taught to walk with a lady, long ago. It wasn't specifically a romantic pose—I'd done the same with Esme, Rosalie and Renata—but the more the other vampires here saw us together, the better. And I liked walking with her this way. It brought back memories, good ones, from more than one part of my life.

"How can I help?" she asked.

I'd known she would ask and I had my answer ready. "I'd like you to be there," I said, "like last time." I swallowed, remembering. I'd simply meant that I wanted her there to drag me away from Felix if he tried to smash me into the flagstones again, but the other event of that day still hovered in my mind, expanded to legendary scale by the halo lens of my fractured memory. It was too easy to think of it, and too hard to remind myself that there wasn't anything to it. She was a bloodthirsty creature, and she was only becoming a more controlled one.

She nodded. "Then I will be," she said.

_If the masters let you,_ I almost prompted, but I held my tongue. Bella had been born into free times. She'd been a citizen, not a subject. The idea of having a master chafed her worse than it chafed me. Pressing the issue would only make her feel defiant, and it wouldn't do for us to fight about it again, not when I had nothing new to say.

"Which one did they pick out?" she asked me. She was still agitated. Why wouldn't she be?

I nodded. "Her name is Caroly," I said. "The one who used to be a journalist up north." So much of what the Volturi did involved hunting information, and the nature of information was changing all the time. Aro and Marcus had decided that the best way to keep abreast of things was to hire humans out of the information industries to work for us, but there was always a risk. People who were in the business of revealing the truth weren't always the best at keeping secrets.

"I would've thought he'd've gone for one of the lab techs this time," she said, "all things considered."

I'd been sent with Felix to interview Caroly when she'd first come to us. Felix had used his charm and presence and I'd stayed in the shadows, quietly listening to her thoughts. In part, I'd been meant to evaluate her for Aro's project, but there had also been the chance that she would need to be eliminated before she wrote the story of a lifetime.

But we'd been lucky. Caroly hadn't cared much one way or the other for news work as I had once understood it. This was far closer to the yellow journalism of my childhood, dressed up behind login screens and video clips. Her editors were interested in sales, in making the news sensational and entertaining beneath a veneer of plausible professionalism. She believed in nothing and no one. We were safe.

"I don't think Jane likes Caroly, though. She snapped at Alec after I told the masters about her."

"She did?" Bella asked carefully. Good. She should be careful when she spoke of Jane. There was no telling what would get back to Aro's ears.

I nodded. "You and Renata were downstairs with Marcell at the time," I said. "I suppose he must have tried her patience." Or Caroly had. The human had of course not been present for our report, but Jane had met her before. I remembered Jane picturing her neat, blond-framed face and thinking some rather unpleasant names.

"Do you think that Jane will give Caroly trouble if..." Bella frowned, probably looking for the words.

"If Caroly joins the family?" I asked.

"That's even creepier than how I was going to say it, but yes."

"Jane didn't haze you," I pointed out.

"Jane's little secret weapon doesn't work on me," Bella said, tapping one temple with her free hand.

"That is true," I acknowledged. Bella was looking at me oddly, as if she'd expected me to say something else.

"My point is that you got the heck beaten out of you on a daily basis, but I basically got left alone," she finally went on. "Is it a guy thing?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "I've only caught scattered thoughts about what it's like to be a newcomer here. I suspect that it was less because I was male and more because I was an outsider."

"So am I," Bella pointed out.

"Not the way I was," I said. "You've never been a member of any other coven—to their eyes, the time you spent with my family doesn't count. None of your human life does. Besides, I suspect that you are being hazed."

"I would've noticed," she says.

"Oh?" I asked. "Has Heidi made any overtures to you? Has Adrienne? Have any of them except Renata?" I asked.

"In the library..."

"In the library everyone is working. Did any of the women here say anything that wasn't strictly related to what you were doing?"

She made a small noise in the back of her throat and looked away. "Huh."

"Well have you tried talking to any of them?" I prodded.

She shook her head. "Why would I want to do that?"

_Because we're going to be here a long time,_ I thought, but I'd said it out loud too many times already. If it hadn't sunk in, then it wasn't going to, at least not through badgering.

"You haven't been accepted here, Bella," I said. "You might not find that personally hurtful, but it's the truth."

"I don't mind," she said, looking ahead. I really should have corrected her, but she had so much on her mind.

"It's a bit late to worry about first impressions. If anything, you should keep doing what you're doing."

"But I'm not doing anything."

"Exactly. You're acting like you don't care whether or not they like you."

"I don't."

"Good," I said. "It's fairly important, and I doubt you could fake it."

She narrowed her eyes at me. I held up my hands in what I hoped would be interpreted as a placating gesture. "It shows that you aren't sycophantic. It shows that you aren't going to break and beg for their approval. Knowing Heidi, she'll see that as a challenge once she notices it—the good kind of challenge. It means that she will come to you. And Adrienne won't want to be outdone, so she won't be far behind."

"And then I should let her help me with something?" she asked. I couldn't help but smile that she'd remembered my earlier advice. "But nothing too big?"

"And nothing too menial," I pointed out. "Don't ask Heidi to fetch you something down from a shelf. Ask her something that she'd have to show off a bit to do."

Bella pursed her lips. "Like what?"

"You've spent more time around her than I have," I pointed out. And I avoided Heidi's thoughts. She spent too much time on her work.

Bella frowned, thinking.

"You have time to think of something," I reminded her. "It will probably be a while before anything comes of it. Remember, we're vampires," I pointed out. "We're slow to change."

"Caius seems to think quickly on his feet," Bella said quietly.

I closed my eyes. "We're doing all that we can do about that," I told her. It was the only thing to say.

She bit down hard on her lip, her voice breaking. "But can't we just _tell_ them—"

Oh God, not again. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the stairwell. I sat her down on the steps and closed the door firmly behind us. Voices would carry in here, even whispered voices, but at least she was out of sight.

"Bella you have to keep calm. You can't let people hear you talking like that." The more unhappy she looked, the more people would be watching her to see if she made any trouble. And she was Bella; sooner or later, she was going to make trouble.

"They're my _parents_," she said as her shoulders shook. "Can't we _tell them?_"

"Bella, we've been through this," I said as gently as I could. "I've done all I could to dissuade the Masters. The truth is, from Aro's perspective, it is a good idea. Your father's thoughts were always harder for me to read than most people's. If your silence really is what made you so calm then it makes sense for him to wonder if it's hereditary."

"Wait, you..." she was staring at me now. "You didn't say how they— How did they find out that Charlie's thoughts were..." She looked away. "Oh God," she said, pulling her knees in to her chest as her whole body shook. "O-oh G-God..." I put my hand on her arm and she slapped me away.

"For God's sake, Bella, I didn't _tell_ Aro to do it."

"But you thought him to do it!" she hissed.

"I can't help it!" I called back. "By God, Bella, I don't _want_ him to—" I pressed my lips together, pushed myself to my feet and ran through twenty Russian verbs before speaking again. She already knew I couldn't help it. And it would be foolish, not to mention insensitive, to expect an apology. A girl was allowed to act a little irrational she learned that there were bloodsucking overlords who wanted both her parents dead, and I was the only one she could lash out at. There was nothing I could say, so I said nothing.

"I could warn them," she breathed.

I shook my head, "Bella, you know why you can't."

"We wouldn't have to say anything bad," she said from far back in her throat, hands tracing a helpless elegance in the air. "We wouldn't tell them the secret, just that they had to run away, change their names."

"It's disloyalty, Bella. It's punished severely here."

"With what?" she asked me. "An arm? An eye? I can do that."

"Don't be childish," I snapped. I could picture it, too vividly. Aro did not need a Bella Swan who had both eyes, arms, legs or anything else, and he had many memories of mutilations, for all that he did not relish them the way Caius did. They'd been reserved for only the worst offenses. The masters preferred to keep their servants intact. And then Jane had joined the guard and given them a white-hot alternative.

"Besides, they'd find them anyway," I said, the words leaving my throat like dust.

She looked away, voice turning bitter. "Demetri," she said. "All comes down to him, doesn't it?"

I nodded. "Demetri." Whatever kept her from defiance. She'd made me promise not to get myself killed, hadn't she? My damned beautiful hypocrite.

It was cruel. I had to be the most twisted wretch on the face of the planet, but I couldn't take my eyes off her when she was like this. I'd learned that in the days since I'd told her about Aro's little brainwave about Charlie and Renee. Completely absorbed in something far away, with the welfare of people on another continent, she was like the deep vibration of a bell being struck, the part that humans heard with their bones instead of their ears. This problem was wrong but somehow that meant that _she_ felt right ...and that made me feel wrong.

"We stick to the plan," I told her firmly.

"I know," she said.

"First this," I said, touching the outside of my cloak, where the syringe was hidden. "Midnight tonight, we find out if delivering venom this way makes any difference." I told her. "Aro is a scientist. He won't change more than one variable at a time."

She stared straight into the wall, as if she couldn't hear me but still so impossibly real that she seemed to make the walls behind her seem far off.

"And we will keep thinking of new things to try," I told her, "things that are less risky than kidnapping an American police chief. Aro won't go for Charlie if we give him an easier way."

Bella closed her eyes. "Scheherazade ran out of stories eventually," she said. "And something tells me that this evil sultan isn't going to have a change of heart."

"Well," I said, sitting down next to her, "he had a change of heart one version of the story." She turned to look at me, almost resting her chin on her shoulder.

"What are you getting at?" she asked.

"In the other version, some say the older version, the beautiful woman kept telling the Sultan stories and more stories, each more fascinating than the last." I tried not to think of how tired the poor woman must have been, even if she'd never lived, being that interesting without end. But Bella was watching me and her dark eyes were finally calm. I couldn't stop now. "And the Sultan listened every night. And her stories were so subtle and vivid that he hardly felt the time passing.

"Scheherazade told the sultan stories until he died, unrepentant, after a long life," I told her.

Bella didn't seem to react. I noticed that I was holding my breath. "The Volturi don't think about time the way that humans or younger vampires do," I said. "If we can keep them distracted long enough, Charlie and Renee will be safe until they're beyond Aro or Caius's reach." It was a perfect plan. Because, by definition, it could not work unless the masters were happy, we could not be punished for it.

She scowled into the steps at her feet, but there was no fire behind it. She looked calmer, but still so defeated. I should have hated it but I didn't. If we were defeated then we got to live.

"This is how it works," I said.

"I know."

"_This_ is how we protect them."

"I know."

"They'll have long, happy lives."

She didn't answer.

"Besides," I said, with a cheerfulness that didn't sound nearly as insincere as it was. "Caroly might be everything they hope for."

I stood next to her as she breathed in and out. She'd be late to the library. That was rare enough to be noticed, but it would cause us less trouble than if she showed up so agitated that she fired off an email telling Charlie to pack up and move to Utah.

"All right," she said at last. "Let's go."

"How long is your shift?" I asked, even though I already knew.

"Just four hours," she said. "I switched one of mine for two of Randall's so that ...you know."

I nodded. Small favors here and there. She'd owe Randall a favor for taking her shift so that she could be with me when I turned Caroly. Of course, it would help if she had a reasonable explanation, a Volturi-sensible excuse for being late... I shook my head to clear it. It was time to focus.

I opened the stairwell door and let her precede me out into the hallway. She'd long since accepted that she couldn't stop me from making these gestures and sometimes even refrained from rolling her eyes at what she called my pre-feminist behavior. (She'd told me that she was perfectly capable of opening doors herself. I'd told her that that wasn't the point.)

I saw her to the library. The hours slipped by and I could feel my agitation growing. I hadn't been given any particular duties in the time leading up to the ...well I supposed _ceremony_ was the wrong word. Deliberate turnings were rare. Marcell had drawn a large crowd because of the practical and unfortunately correct assumption that I would need someone to stop me from draining him dry. I could vaguely remember Felix knocking me across the flagstones. I could remember what had happened after that far more clearly, but the memory was hardly more pleasant through the mirror of my current thoughts.

Pacing wasn't as satisfying as it had been. What I really needed was a long run through a few hundred miles of empty woodland, a good wrestling match with Emmett, a good fight with Rosalie. I might as well have wished for the stones of Volterra to dissolve away, and all the rest of the world too.

Around eleven, Rolfe came to fetch me. The master had some last-minute specifications. He told me what Aro had in mind and I had to admit that it would probably work. There was no sense in letting the girl suffer, after all.

At eleven forty-five, I heard the practiced cadence of her footsteps against the floor. She was getting better at this, at walking at a human pace. She was even managing to fake a hurry. I could remember that being the hardest part for Rosalie to learn.

She looked me in the eye and gave a little smile but didn't say anything. I wasn't in much of a mood for talking, anyway.

_Remember the discipline_, I thought it but decided not to say it. By now, she knew.

_Ready?_ the look in her eyes seemed to ask.

_No_, I didn't answer. I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to do this or think about why, not any of the reasons.

One heartbeat, pounding away like a steady drumbeat. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought the whole room was empty except for her.

I held Bella's hand and pushed open the door. It was too much like it had been, back in the spring, stumbling into the Volturi's presence with Bella at my side, only one beating heart between us.

Bella released my hand and let me walk past her while she remained near the edge of the room. In the same movement, she reached behind her head and raised the hood of her cloak so that she became a light gray stone in the growing wall of bodies between Caroly and any exit.

We waited as the others walked in, hoods raised, shades of gray filling the room like a billowing cloud. Caroly did't have a hair out of place, but she looked like nothing so much as a bird caught in the slipstream. Her weight was shifting from one foot to another, only slightly, but her nerves might as well have been showing right through her pale, Teutonic skin.

The masters came in last, flanked by their guards. Jane. Adrienne. Dora. Renata.

"Well, my dear ones," Aro said, rubbing his hands together. "I trust we're all more than interested in the proceeding about to take place. Our young servant here has volunteered to be the first in our little experiment."

_Experiment?_ I heard Caroly think loudly, though the word "servant" had drawn her attention as well. _I thought they were making me a vampire._ Thoughts of the various legends ran through her head. She saw herself emerging as some intermediate creature, a Renfield, a hunchbacked revenant, something less than human, a supernatural slave.

Jane was by Aro's right hand, but Felix and Demetri were here as well. If Felix was hoping he'd be able to fracture my occipital bone again, he was managing not to show it.

I saw the girl's throat flex as she swallowed. Her mouth had gone dry. She'd meant to say something now, had planned a short speech, but all I could see in her thoughts were the first words she'd rehearsed, "Thank you," repeating over and over like a broken record. It was a moment before I realized that she actually was trying to speak, but her tongue was caught between her teeth, half stuck out as she tried to form the sounds.

I stepped forward until I was only a few feet away from her, as Aro meant me to. I gave the girl a gentle smile and then looked at Aro.

"I—" she managed. "I—"

_I changed my mind._ She was thinking. The finality of it all. The coldness of it all. She could tell that she was prey, and she was reacting to that. She remembered a Zurich garden in the springtime, full of light. She wanted so much to be back there now.

_I don't want to do this any more,_ she was trying to say. _I changed my mind_.

"You don't get to," I whispered. "None of us do."

She pushed her lips together but they were still shaking.

"Don't look scared," I said. "It'll go better for you if you seem brave."

_I know_. And I could see it in her mind: The insane group mentality of this place made sense to her. She could see through the dynamics of rank and dominance as clearly as I could see the levels of gray in our cloaks.

So that was why Aro wanted her.

I held out the needle so that she could see it. Caroly nodded and moved to push back the sleeve on her left arm. It was all I could do to keep my eyes open against the ridiculousness of it all. There was no reason not to get this over with quickly.

I shook my head. "Not that way," I admitted. I looked over her shoulder and made eye contact with Rolfe, whose lip twitched in a quarter of a grin.

Her brow creased in confusion. "N-no? Then w—"

A tenth of a second later, the needle was sticking out of her chest. The hem of Rolfe's cloak swayed back and forth against the flagstones as he appeared behind her, supporting her with his hands against her shoulder blades. It was just like we'd planned, too quick for her to move and botch it. He kept her upright as I slowly pushed the plunger down, injecting my venom straight into a human heart as her mouth gaped like a fish just pulled off the hook.

Caroly's arms moved stiffly, hands seeking the sliver of metal that I'd slipped between her upper ribs, but Rolfe held those still as well. She sagged against his grip, and I moved with her, keeping the flow steady, steady, marking her heartbeat in my hearing. In the corner of my eye, I saw Aro sit forward in his chair and place a hand on Jane's waiting shoulder, watching intently.

Rolfe and I lowered her to the floor between gasps. Her thoughts were't much help, but from the way she was tensing and untensing her legs, the venom was spreading quickly—very quickly. Aro seemed intrigued. Of course, he'd see it all again through my eyes, human thoughts and all. I knelt down next to her and carefully pulled the syringe free. A drop of blood welled up at the injection site.

Usually, vampire venom sealed the site of the bite, but it was usually delivered through nothing but skin. I grabbed a wad of Caroly's shirt and pressed it hard over the puncture. The scent in the air kept growing stronger, but not as fast. Eventually, it plateaued and I let go.

I looked up and met Aro's eyes.

_Is it working, young Edward?_

The girl's thoughts were a mess of pain, flashing bright like the glare off the roof of a car at midday. I nodded.

Aro sat back again and motioned to Caius, who shrugged.

"Well, my dear ones. That was hardly as titillating as some others we've seen, but the purpose is to bring a new member into this family, not entertainment."

Caroly had rolled onto her side, legs curling up into the fetal position. The skirt she'd worn was short and had ridden up, revealing an undignified stretch of pantyhose.

_Meaty haunches,_ Adrienne began her silent tally of Caroly's appearance, making educated guesses here and there about which traits would be muted by her transformation.

I'd thought Gianna deserved to die. Gianna had watched the human prey file in year after year. Gianna had been willing to abandon her human family and the responsibilities that came with it, and she'd done it all eagerly. Caroly was just ...a bit rotten. She was self-centered and heartless, and she was getting an education.

I looked over at Aro. He was wondering why she wasn't screaming. Most of them did but some of them didn't. Bella hadn't. I realized suddenly that I didn't know anything about what had happened to Marcell immediately after his turning. I caught Aro's eye and tried to put the question into my own.

_Yes, you can go_, he thought.

I felt my cloak swirl around me as I turned and moved toward the door. I did not look back.

Bella's hand found mine on the way.

"That was anticlimactic," she said quietly.

"Not for her it wasn't," I answered.

Bella paused for a moment. "Do you want to go to the roof garden?" she asked.

"I want to go anywhere." The street. The roof. Siberia. Anywhere without that girl's voice.

"I've been thinking," she said.

"I approve," I answered.

I could picture her narrowing her eyes at me, but I didn't turn my head. Not until we were well away from the others, at least.

"You said that Aro can hide things from you, his thoughts," she went on.

"Anyone can hide thoughts from me," I said. This was starting to sound like a puzzle. Good. I needed something to distract me from what was going on back there. It was almost as bad as a feast day. "Most people have to make a study of it, though." I pointed to the side of my head. "Aro had a cheat sheet."

"So maybe he didn't tell you all of why he wanted those people. I mean these ones in particular."

I shrugged. "It's possible. He was concentrating pretty hard on his plan, though. If there were something he was hiding from me, I probably would have caught a piece of it sooner or later. What do you think is going on?"

"Well, Caroly and Marcell were turned with your venom," she prompted.

"Yes, so?" I asked. It bothered me, of course. It wasn't quite like having children, but I did feel some responsibility for my newborns, and being ordered to forego it didn't mean that I was willing to. Being unwilling to didn't mean I was allowed not to.

"Well that means they're sort of Carlisle's, aren't they?"

I stopped.

"You said that Aro was interested in Carlisle. Maybe this isn't really about you. Maybe it's not really about calm newborn soldiers—not for Aro, anyway," she corrected. Caius would want his army no matter what. "Maybe that's why he wants _you_. You've said yourself that your gift doesn't bring much more to the Volturi than his does."

"I was being modest," I murmured. Aro had found a dozen ways to use me... But he had _found_ them. _After_ I was already here.

I shook my head. "Aro is covetous," I admitted. I doubted I could be punished for saying it flat-out. It was no more than he'd admit himself. "He already thinks he understands Carlisle. He wants to take things away from him."

She had a point... Aro was fixated on Carlisle, but...

Of course.

She was hoping he wouldn't go after them. She was making herself believe that something else was going on so that she could be less worried about Charlie and Renee.

"Do you think I'm right?" she asked. There it was again, dark in those blood-amber eyes.

"I guess it's possible," I said.

She gave a tight little smile and pushed open the door to the stairwell.

"I'm supposed to do that," I said, and I managed not to sound indignant.

"I got here first," she said.

There was no sense in false hope, I supposed as we made our way to Sulpicia's garden ...not unless false hope kept her from doing something stupid and rebellious. As much as I'd liked Renee when I met her, as much as I ...well... I suppose I would have liked Charlie if he hadn't thought about shooting me all the time, their safety wasn't as important to me as hers was.

I closed my eyes.

Renee would hate to be a vampire. Even if she survived the process, all the hiding and rules would press down on her flighty spirit. And that was only if she didn't slip up and step outside for a walk to snap photos at the cattedralle one nice, sunny day. No, Renee wouldn't last long.

Charlie, on the other hand. Even apart form his elusive thoughts, I had to admit that Charles Swan was a better candidate than most. He had a steady, serious mind that was capable of focusing on one thing to the exclusion of others. Charlie might make it. He wouldn't _like_ it of course. He'd been a police chief, a leader of men (technically a small, rotating number of male and female officers and deputies) for so long that taking orders from the masters would grate on him worse than it did on Bella. And then there were the pictures. A man who kept a framed photo of the ex who'd left him sixteen years earlier, hung it in a place of honor, was not someone who could watch whole centuries pass with ease. He would hold on to the past. It could be damaging to humans. In vampires, it was mental suicide. To be immortal meant to watch things pass away, customs, languages, people, even places.

"Well that wasn't so bad," she said at last.

The summer flowers were still in bloom, some of them. It was nearly October, and the warm months lasted a long time in Italy. No, it hadn't been so bad. Not like it had been with Marcell.

"Anticlimactic," I repeated. The word felt like smooth, sharp stones in my mouth. I liked the coolness, but I knew I could crack my teeth on it.

"I sometimes wonder if Sulpicia ever came here to relax," she said. Distracting. Yes, I wanted distracting.

"I don't know," I wondered aloud. Why growing flowers? Cut flowers would have been just as visually stimulating without any earth or fertilizers to mar their scent. "Maybe she wanted to build something, something that would change over time, even if it would die back every year."

Bella gave a half-smile. "Actually a lot of these are perennials. Renata's practically got a Ph.D. in this stuff."

"Aro build a world order. His wife built a garden."

"And she doesn't even do that any more."

I shook my head. "It's not like that with Carlisle and Esme."

"Isn't it?" she asked. "She builds things that won't last forever and he saves the world."

"Aro doesn't save the world, and Esme doesn't only build gardens," I managed not to snap. I knew what she was doing. I'd asked her to do it. "Esme designs buildings for people to use. They're pretty but they work. And Carlisle doesn't..."

"Doesn't pack her away in a tower to keep her out of his business?" she asked.

She wasn't serious. I could see it on her face. She was teasing me, calling me out of my sullenness, and she was right to do it.

"That's not why the wives stay in the tower," I said.

"Really?" she asked. "Because it looks like they never go anywhere."

"They don't," I admitted, "but their confinement is voluntary, mostly," I amended. Aro avoided thinking of Sulpicia around me. Frankly, I preferred it that way. "I think it makes them feel safe."

"From what?" she asked. "Renata started telling me about the Children of the Moon. Is there really a vampire boogeyman?" she asked, sounding almost like a child wanting a campfire story.

Well I would rather be at a campfire in the Arizona desert than here in Volterra. I would rather be a dried-up old man or a spinster camp counselor telling a story than myself at this moment. She was kind, my newborn Bella. She was so kind.

"The Volturi have enemies," I said.

"Of course they do," she answered.

"Well the last major challenge to their power was hundreds of years ago, by a large coven based in Romania."

"Romania?" she asked carefully. I could almost see the wheels ticking in her head. "The son of the dragon?" she asked.

Showoff. Two could play at that game. "Vlad Tepes was completely human," I answered with a smile. "But I wouldn't be surprised if these fellows inspired some of the legends that would later collect around the name 'Dracula.'"

"Did drinking blood make them younger?" she asked. "Could they turn into bats and wolves and mist?"

"No," I answered, "but if you met them you'd understand how they'd prompt someone like Stoker to say that they could. Caius's memories of them in particular..." I allowed myself to shudder. It was cathartic. Telling this story, taking all the sense of it and putting it in order, that would be cathartic too.

"Not everyone liked obeying the Volturi's law," I began, "but for thousands of years, our kind has had no choice. Keep the secret or be destroyed."

"And there were vampires who wanted to go public?" she asked.

"Not really," I answered. "One or two here and there but the only coven that ever seriously made a play for the Volturi's place in our world was the Romanians."

Bella's eyes grew wide. "They tried to take down the Volturi?" she asked.

"More like take their place, but yes," I answered. "There have only been a few covens of anything like this size in our history. Most large groups of vampires eventually fall to infighting. Some can hold things together for a decade or a century, but if they aren't destroyed from the outside, they're destroyed from within."

Bella nodded, listening intently. It was having the intended effect—helping me focus.

"A group of Romanian vampires managed to build a large, talented coven and keep it together for hundreds of years." I closed my eyes, trying to take the snatches and scraps of thoughts and memories that I'd collected and knit them into a cohesive shape. "Caius wanted to destroy them, but Marcus argued that there was no reason so long as they kept the law. Aro saw that them as a possible threat, but for reasons that escape me, he did not want to make the first move.

"Eventually, the Romanians made a play for power here. I saw you reading about European history," I said, "you may have noticed that the fifteen-hundreds were not exactly the most stable part of Italy's timeline." I raised an eyebrow. That had been Stefan's doing, mostly. "The Romanians were subtle, very skilled at working behind the scenes. And this was one of their plans: destabilize the Volturi's core territory and distract them long enough to attack the coven itself."

"Did it work?" she asked quietly.

I sighed. For a second, just a second... "We're sitting here, aren't we?" I asked. "Their plan backfired," I said. "An unstable Italy only made Caius keep his strongest fighters close. It only made Marcus overhaul the compound's defenses. They did not specifically know the attack was coming, but they were ready for it nonetheless.

"The coup failed," I said, "but if they had waited longer or attacked with a larger force, who knows?"

"And we'd be stuck in Rumania instead of Italy," Bella muttered sullenly.

"More likely we'd both be dead," I added. "Their leaders, Stefan and Vladmir, had a reputation for brutality that Caius couldn't match on his best day." And Caius had only gotten more paranoid since.

"That's a little hard to believe."

I shrugged. "That's the story."

There was a sound from many floors beneath us. Bella was halfway to her feet before I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

"Jane?" she asked.

I shook my head. "I'm surprised Caroly lasted this long, actually."

"Is she down in the cell? The one I was in?"

"Marcell is still there. They have more than one."

She settled back, closing her eyes as a breeze kicked up from somewhere in the city.

"What will they do with her once she's turned, do you think?"

I gave a half-smile. Aro loved to run through possibilities. Caius did as well, but I spent less time around him. "If all works as planned, she'll be cannon fodder. Demetri and Felix will teach her to fight, teach her the discipline, and she'll go out on missions like we do—at least that's what Caius wants."

"Is he at odds with Aro again?"

"Not at odds," I said. "Aro is a bit concerned about the effect this would have on the community. The newborn wars are a big part of our history. Only the vampire children and perhaps the Children of the Moon frighten people more. The idea of a calm newborn army is going to shake things up."

"Enough so that someone might attack like the Romanians did?" Bella asked.

"I don't know," I said, wondering why it hadn't occurred to me. Maybe that was why the Romanians had been so much on Aro's mind. I'd thought it was the news from Budapest. "Organization is rare for us, Bella. We're not social creatures the way humans are. Even things like the newborn wars in Mexico and Central America are unusual."

She pursed her lips, thinking about something that I couldn't see. And I loved that I couldn't see it.

"It all comes down to Chelsea, doesn't it?" she asked. "The Volturi's power is their ability to work together, and she makes that possible."

I shook my head, rolling sideways as I leaned back against the roof access. "Chelsea's gift helps, but before that, it was Marcus," I explained. "His eye for personalities, for the connections between beings..." I tried to think of how to explain it. "Most buildings that are made out of stone or brick—like this one—they use cement or some other kind of mortar. Chelsea is like cement.

"Well there is another way to build a stone house," I went on, "and that is to find exactly the right rock with exactly the right shape and, without polishing or changing it, lay it against other rocks so that the angles form the shape you want. It's called drystone."

Bella frowned. "Does anyone actually do that?"

"Not any more. Some monks in Ireland built their cells that way. They're not very big and they don't look like much, but many of them are still standing."

"Hm," Bella responded.

"Chelsea has her gift," I finished. "And Marcus has his, but he also has the skill and patience to put it to use." Or he had, before Chelsea had taken over his duties and left him to fall into boredom.

"Maybe turning people is like that," Bella suggested. "Maybe you need the exact right person to bite the exact right human."

"That's possible," I said. It was possible. She was right. And if she _was_ right then there was no point going after Charlie and Renee ...unless Aro wanted to make certain that it wasn't genetic, which he would.

Well, I needed something to think about...

"What else do you think it might be?" I asked. My brain could conjure up every horrific possibility with regard to what could go wrong, and it looked as though Bella's worked the same way. Maybe we could turn them both round, think of what might be put right. I'd done it before.

Bella looked to the side. "It's got to be something that I have that Marcell doesn't," she started, voice like a quivering fishing line. "Maybe I'm a girl?"

"You're definitely a girl," I answered.

"Shut up," she said. "I grew up in Phoenix. It might be something in the water."

I frowned, trying to think of any member of the Volturi was from the Southwest. Even so, it wouldn't be too hard to pluck some Arizona tourist out of Heidi's net the next time a feast day came around.

"I went from someplace very sunny and then spent a year in Washington," she said. "I was reading that biochemistry book, and they got to that. Maybe it's a vitamin thing."

I winced, remembering the cod liver oil I'd been force-fed as a child to prevent rickets. Never mind that Chicago hadn't had London's smog problems. It had been by far my least favorite British fashion.

"We might be able to try that," I said. And the evening passed slowly, as we planned out stories to tell the king.

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drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	30. Ch 29 Consequences

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

There seems to be a certain misconception floating around, and I apologize if anyone was misled. I don't teach at Columbia University. I use a CU email address because I got a degree there. I teach at a community college.

It took me a while to decide whether this should be chapter twenty-nine or chapter thirty. Chapter thirty is a pretty long one, and it's mostly written.

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"The guard was impassive and disciplined again; there were no individuals among them, just the whole." –Bella, _Breaking Dawn_

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The pieces would probably end up in Caius's safehouse in Oklahoma, but Afton had said we were from Illinois. This place might not be Beijing, but they did have satellite TV and the curator had an unfortunate taste for American musical theater. We didn't want to seem like bumpkins. Afton had also said that we worked for a private collector from Chicago. We didn't want to seem too rich.

We didn't want to seem too poor either. Afton was dressed in a modestly expensive suit that Chelsea had tailored to fit him. I hovered behind, only a shade shabbier, and wished for the thousandth time that evening that I had been turned at twenty-seven instead of seventeen.

"Pardon my assistant," Afton told the curator in American-accented Mandarin. "He does not speak Chinese."

The curator, a Mr. Gao, nodded and smiled, thinking in passing how his second cousin, a boy who'd used to pinch Gao's arms and rub his head in the dirt, had grown up to become a minor magistrate in a small town and never stepped outside on a cloudy day without an aide to hold an umbrella over his head. Then he remembered how, a few months earlier, the American ambassador had caused a stir by carrying his own bag through the airport and ordering his own coffees from Starbucks. It pleased his ego to know that not all Americans were so humble that they put fatheads like his cousin in their place.

Two thousand years ago, the thickest, richest whorl in the eddying mist that we called human civilization was Rome, condensing and churning streams of throbbing humanity like the red spot storm on the planet named for its central god. Before that, it had been Alexandria. For a time, it had been London. But one thousand years ago, it had been Kaifeng, capital of the northern Song Dynasty.

Which meant, also, in this time long before the southern wars, that it had been fertile territory for any vampires willing to trade the freedom of China's immense wildlands for the convenience of a meal every night. In those days, Aro, Caius and Marcus had always had an agent or two in Kaifeng.

Gunpowder, historiography, agricultural and economic revolutions, and wars against the Jin and later the Mongols, but we were here for the Song's art, which Caius had long admired. The provincial capital, nearby Zhengzhou, had several newspapers with well-updated art sections. It turned out he wasn't above using the library teams to scout for which pieces had resurfaced.

Getting their legal owners to part with them, however, was another mess entirely.

_If that bastard thinks this institution will part with any of those pieces for one yuan less,_ Mr. Gao thought from behind his professional smile,_ then this meeting is over._

I carefully leaned down just enough to set Afton's briefcase, which I'd been carrying, on the floor, making certain that the metal clasps clicked against the hardwood.

Nothing. Dammit.

Afton kept a straight face, but his thoughts were smirking:

_I bet I can bring him down to five thousand on the sculpture_.

That _son_ of a _bitch_.

I didn't happen to know whether Afton had ever been American but he was certainly a willful, frothing idiot. He had forgotten the code again, _again_. I was supposed to put the briefcase on the floor if the curator wasn't bluffing, let the umbrella rustle if he'd go lower, that and a dozen other cues. That man knew that he worked in a smaller museum in a town whose population barely topped five million, and he was _not_ willing to sell his institution's Song-era pieces for anything near what Afton was offering. In fact, he was thinking of having us thrown out so that the local paper could do a spot on the rich Americans trying to take advantage of a struggling guardian of the culture during hard times. And Afton, fool that he was, was still trying to get us home under budget. In all likelihood, he just hadn't been paying attention when Demetri had drilled the code into him. He didn't seem to think that Aro's new toy could be of any use to him in the course of his duties.

That made me furious. We were going to miss our chance. Caius wouldn't get his artwork and he would blame me for it. I wondered if it would be Jane or if he'd just let Felix rip one of my arms off again. I didn't like my punishments in any case, but the fact that I was going to get one that I _hadn't earned_ fair made my blood boil. And that was ridiculous. Bella would have said that I hadn't earned any of them. For a crazy half-second, I wished she were here with us. For all that I scolded her for badmouthing our covenmates, I could really do with one of her rants right now. Instead, she'd been kept behind. This job didn't require raw newborn muscle, which was the only supernatural gift that she seemed to have, and Demetri couldn't be spared to remind me not to bolt. Keeping Bella in Volterra was Aro's way of making sure I came back.

I should have been doing all this myself. I was more than capable as a negotiator. I'd bought every one of Rosalie's cars and all of Emmett's since he'd been fleeced by that dealer in Iowa. My only problem was that I looked too young to be anyone important. Afton had been somewhere north of thirty when he'd been turned. He could make himself look anywhere between twenty-one and forty-five when he had to. I just didn't look the part of an art dealer. Afton had been managing the Volturi's East Asian art acquisitions for years. He'd built and rebuilt his reputation until he could simply choose a name, choose an accent, and go run Caius's errands.

And this one got us both run right out the door.

At least it was a nice night. The sun had gone down just before the two of us had shown up for our meeting with Gao. It had not been a long meeting. There was still some red-tinged light in the air near the west.

"Where were you on that one, witch-boy?" Afton scowled at me.

"Right behind you, telling you what you needed to know. It's hardly my fault if you ignore it." That wasn't how Caius would see it, but it felt good to say it while I could.

Afton rounded on me. I could see that this wasn't really about our mission. It never had been. This man had hated me ever since I'd threatened Chelsea all those months ago.

"Got all the answers, then?" said Afton. "What do you suggest we do now, smartass?"

I wanted to snap at him, but I knew he'd make me pay for it, "I suggest," I said carefully, "that we make the best of this, go home, and tell the next procurer to start at twice our initial offering."

"When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it."

It was rage. It was just rage. My knee-jerk reaction was always to point out that he _had_ asked my opinion, for all that he hadn't meant it, but he already knew and didn't care.

"How'd it go, you two?" came a jovial voice from over my shoulder.

"Been having fun, I see," Afton said sourly. Rolfe smiled from beneath a pair of Gucci sunglasses with the tags still on them. At least they would look like Guccis to anyone who either wasn't a vampire or didn't follow fashion. Knockoffs were pretty popular in this part of China, mostly because they were all that most people could afford. Some of the factories in China _made_ high-end consumer goods like smart phones and designer gear, but for the most part, the big-name items weren't sold here, at least not to most people.

Overall, China had done well, but a disproportionate amount of the wealth had gone to businesses and a small upper class. Savings accounts rarely beat inflation anywhere in the world, but in China, the government allowed banks to give middle- and working-class customers puny rates so that they could use the colossal difference to invest in business. Most people had no way to preserve their buying power other than purchasing real estate—and that got harder to do every year. The economy boomed and the ordinary citizenry watched their hard-earned savings shrink. Communism.

"I have, actually," said Rolfe. "I can't help but notice that your meeting ended early." _Dammit but Afton's a bitch when he loses one,_ he thought. I felt a hint of relief. If this had happened before, then maybe Caius would go easy on me. _Really makes me wish Demetri and Alec hadn't had to go off to Hungary_.

"It seems our new friend's reputation has been exaggerated," Afton said.

_Hm,_ the thought matched the expression on Rolfe's face. He was just muscle on this one. He was just muscle on most missions. He was far more interested in figuring out how my talent worked than about any little hunk of thousand-year-old clay. _I wonder if the thought-reading doesn't work if the person's thinking in Chinese._

I raised an eyebrow but didn't answer. Rolfe kept thinking. Then I realized what he was thinking about.

_Oh no_, I thought, and I tried to shake my head. Rolfe was no fool. Or rather, he wasn't really the kind of fool that he pretended to be. He was smart enough to put a plan together and stupid enough to think that it would work.

"Afton," asked Rolfe, "do you want to go back to Caius empty-handed?"

"Of course not," Afton answered. "Where are you going with this?"

Rolfe looked straight at me, "Did you happen to find out where this museum acquired the pieces that Master Caius wants?" Rolfe's eyebrows were almost all the way up into his short, thick dark hair. _How 'bout it?_ his expression seemed to say

If I lied, Aro would know. And he'd let Caius give me to Jane again.

"They got the sculptures from a private collection," I said.

"And does that private collection contain anything that Master Caius might want in place of his precious whatever it was?" asked Rolfe.

"Oh," said Afton, head tilting back as he figured out what Rolfe was suggesting. They both looked at me for my answer.

I closed my eyes. Yes, yes there had been a vase that had caught Gao's eye, but the owner hadn't wanted to give it up. "If he didn't sell to a museum then he won't sell to foreigners," I pointed out.

Rolfe smiled, an easygoing confident grin.

"Well I wasn't thinking we would _buy_ it," he said pointedly.

It was a decent plan. I'd managed to pick the house's appearance, layout and general location out of Gao's brain before he'd kicked us out. It wasn't a set of blueprints and all the passwords to the security system, but it was a start. The place was somewhat ostentatious and in good repair. Whoever lived here was someone important.

"You're serious," Afton was saying.

"Serious about finding the place, getting the owner's name and at the very least returning to Volterra with some intel," answered Rolfe. They sounded like a goddamned heist movie cliché, but he meant it.

I could see the wheels turning in Afton's head. _Too risky_, he was thinking. _Anyone rich enough to have a private collection of this quality will have it defended. A job like that would take weeks to plan. But then..._ He eyed me. _No great loss if they screw it up._

I'd kept my eyes open in Volterra and in the field. Afton was strong and dutiful, but he was the cautious type. If he turned down Rolfe's suggestion in his capacity as team leader, I could probably find a way to twist things around so that his timidity was the reason we'd come back with nothing. If he hung back while Rolfe and I performed the real action, then he could claim that any mistakes were our fault.

"Tell me, Rolfe," said Afton, "your bright idea is that we go to a private residence and liberate one of its cultural treasures, then somehow get it past customs?"

"Sounds like fun," Rolfe answered. "And don't tell me you haven't gotten anything past border control. What was it, '82? '88?"

"Maybe we shouldn't be talking about this in the middle of the road," I suggested.

"'87," said Afton, ignoring me as he dryly remembered a small Van Gogh disguised inside a gutted Platinum Apple IIe. "That was more impressive than it sounds. It worked because I'd planned it out ahead of time."

"We weren't riding on a private plane then. Small airport. No x-rays." Rolfe was still smiling. Shit. Afton was actually coming around to it. Even worse, so was I.

Well, that was it. This was the kind of person I'd become. I'd once found it morally acceptable to commit murder so long as the people I killed were murderers themselves. Now, I was merely willing to commit theft so long as it kept Caius from letting Jane use my central nervous system as an ashtray. Carlisle would have understood. My human mother would have died of shame.

"All right, so let's say that customs isn't an issue," said Afton. "What specifically did you have in mind?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Rolfe, smiling. "Best to keep it simple."

I felt my face go blank as Rolfe's idea took shape. It might not work for the vase, I thought, running Gao's half-remembered catalog of the collection through my head, but there was a book, a treatise on poetry, that might be just the thing.

To my surprise, we managed to find the house.

The images in Gao's mind had not been clear. The man lived near Zhengzhou, the regional capital, and I'd gotten the name of the neighborhood—fortunately on the western side of the city, the side nearest Kaifeng; midnight or not, it was still urban traffic in China—but narrowing down the location had been another matter. Also, Gao had come to visit during the day, to see the owner's collection at its best. I had no idea what specific safeguards were placed on the house at night.

And it was a house, not an apartment or penthouse as I'd supposed. I tried to reach out, to hear the minds within, but there was nothing but pieces of dreams. The house's owner could be a CEO or a criminal, and I could not tell. We could be robbing the provincial governor's home, starting up major trouble, and I would never know.

"Can you see inside?" asked Rolfe. "Where's that book you mentioned?"

"Books can't actually think, Rolfe," I said dryly. "Nothing for me to hear."

Rolfe looked at me for a moment. "I meant could you see inside through the windows," he said.

"Sure," I answered.

"That's totally what I meant."

"Fine. No I can't."  
Rolfe grimaced, clearly disappointed. "Anyone watching?" he asked. I could see he had the idea of jumping up onto the ledge to get a look.

"Not with their eyes, Rolfe, but there are these things called security cameras." And anyone watching the feed would take notice of two foreign men, one of them smack in the middle of "troublemaking kid" age, even if they weren't jumping two stories straight into the air to case a building that might be hiding several million dollars' worth of artifacts.

"Hmm," he said, folding his arms.

"We shouldn't be doing this," I said. "Afton was right. A job like this takes planning."

"Not if we just smash in and make it look like a robbery," said Rolfe. He shook his head. "Look, I know you want to get back to Volterra and see Bella, but I don't have a mate at all. I've probably gone without sex longer than you ever have in your life."

If I'd been drinking anything, I would have choked. I looked at Rolfe.

_With a pretty-boy face like that he's probably been getting laid twice a week since he was fifteen_, he thought.

"_Rolfe!_" I snapped.

"I didn't say anything," he said.

I shook my head. Rolfe's lecherous assumptions were the least of my worries. At least he wasn't going into visuals. Felix had lowered my tolerance to other men imagining my newborn in compromising situations, and I'd have hated to make it through this whole art procurement fiasco just to get tossed to Jane because I ripped one of my teammates' heads off.

But it seemed that someone was interested in visual thoughts this night. On the other side of the building, Afton was imagining Rolfe and me breaking through the security glass, moving too quickly to leave any meaningful images on the surveillance system. It wasn't a bad idea. Considering that I had a decent enough idea of where the book was, it might even work.

The image came again, more clearly.

And then again, pointed with irritation.

Rolfe started to speak, but I held up a hand and he fell quiet. How to put this?

"Afton is working out his plan," I whispered.

The truth of the matter was that Afton had already ordered me to act. The problem was that if the job failed, if my face were caught on camera or if I damaged Caius's artifacts, he could always claim, to anyone but Aro, that I'd grown impatient and acted on my own.

I was disobeying an order. Only Afton and I would know, at least until we got back to Volterra and gave our report to Aro, but I was disobeying it. I'd catch hell either way now. Here it came.

The streetlights flickered and a second later, Afton was hissing into my ear, his cloak swishing with the speed of his movements. "What the hell are you on about? Get up there."

"Through the glass?" I asked pointedly, catching Rolfe's smile out of the corner of my eye. He, at least, thought that Afton's plan sounded amusing.

Afton's eyes narrowed. He thought I was being petulant, like a child pretending that she doesn't know that her mother wants her to pick up her toys.

"I need to hear you say it out loud. Unless we've worked something out ahead of time," I explained, sounding far more defensive than I wanted to. "Sometimes when people are thinking about what they want to do, the idea hasn't reached its final form, and—"

Afton's punch to my mouth left me reeling. Obedience, not excuses.

"Well someone forgot to take his anti-bitch medication today," Rolfe said sardonically. I shook my head, wondering if Afton would take it as a joke or a challenge, but to my surprise, he chuckled. I frowned, before I realized that the bitch in Rolfe's remark could just as easily have been me.

I looked up at the burly vampire and he gave a half-grin. I gaped. By God, he was doing it on purpose. He had a whole list of two-sided comments that he kept ready just in case his teammates started sniping. No, he was not the same kind of fool that he pretended to be.

"Faces covered," said Afton, shaking his own hood down over his head. We'd gone to our meeting in the museum in ordinary Western suits—shipped in from a tailor shop in Chicago, just for the authenticity of it—but the cloaks served a double purpose here. Anyone wondering why we were dressed so strangely would merely assume we wanted to conceal our faces.

"Edward goes in first," Afton continued. "Search the display room, find anything that would please Master Caius—" _Enough to keep all our hides intact,_ he thought "—and get out before anything can track you."

"And if we run into a Leningrad situation?" asked Rolfe. In his mind, I caught a few images. "Leningrad," it seemed, was code for "rottweiler the side of an overfed Shetland pony." It seemed that Felix had survived the excursion, but his pants had not. I managed to keep from more than smiling.

"Kick its teeth in and watch your ass," said Afton in no mood for jokes. "Now get on with it."

I focused my attention on the building, listening as hard as I could. Only one inhabitant, quietly dreaming. Damn. He'd wake easily. We'd have to be in and out before he could react. The display room was on the second floor with several wide windows to let in the light. The owner was successful, I'd seen in Gao's memory, and he liked to show off.

I ran toward the near wall, crossing the street in three quick strides, and leaped. The window shattered like the icy in top of a puddle. Rolfe was right behind me.

I knocked my head forward, making sure that the hood of my cloak covered anything important just as the lights flickered on full-blast, and the air around us erupted in mechanical shrieks. We had seconds.

"This one?" asked Rolfe. I turned to see him pointing to a sculpture of a woman, caged in glass. I shook my head, recognizing the period. Caius already had a full collection Manchu-era art. I cast my eyes around the room. The vase? No, it would crack when my feet hit the ground outside. A painting? Imported Japanese, Tokugawa period. A book...

I pointed. Moving with precision that I had not been able to master since Felix had broken my hand, Rolfe struck the glass enclosure precisely on the seam with his closed fist, separating one side from the rest without breaking it. He tucked the book under his cloak and we went out the way we'd come in. Afton turned beside us and we ran.

Afton had performed maneuvers like this before. He knew the standard procedures of police forces in dozens of countries, and he'd operated in this part of the world for many years. We crossed the street through the shadows between two buildings, then spun south and hugged the outlines of the streetlights, emerging far from where anyone would expect us to be. And we did not cease moving.

Afton was skilled, but even at three in the morning, even outside the city center, there were wakeful thoughts everywhere. "Other way!" I hissed in what I hoped was outside human register.

Earlier, on the way from Kaifeng, I'd told him that I could run in front if he liked, appear to take the lead while following the directions I read in his mind, but he'd declined, and by "declined" I meant that he'd knocked me upside the head. I'd managed to take that one a little better, without losing my balance. Rolfe had remarked internally that Felix had helped me develop quite a chin. Afton wasn't entirely wrong, though. He'd surmised, correctly, that if I ran in the lead, I could make my own decisions about where we would go, and they would both have to follow me. Of course, I meant nothing untoward by this. I only meant to guide us away from any wakeful tourists.

Or cops.

We stumbled out into the light just in time to see the police car screech to a halt in front of us, three strangely-dressed strangers, running, one of them with his arm hitched up, cloak draped over a bundle that they could not see. In the flash of their thoughts, I saw that the man we'd robbed was slightly higher up on the local food chain than I'd thought.

The driver had seen Afton's face, and his partner was reaching for the radio.

This time, Afton's orders were silent.

_Kill them_.

Rolfe hadn't needed to be told. His fist was through the windshield, shattering it like the blow of a jackhammer. In one movement, he avoided the angle of any on-board camera, grabbed the driver's partner by the throat and jerked him through the gaping cracked eggshell of his vehicle. Afton was already moving toward the driver himself, but I got there first, reaching through the open window to slam his head hard against the dashboard, trying to imagine where it would land if he'd front-ended the fire hydrant on the corner. I tried not to imagine how warm he was, or how young he looked.

The human's whole body quivered, and I felt his skull crunch slightly as it fractured but did not break. I could feel the flow of blood in his veins, could imagine it pooling at the injury site. Swelling. Inflammation. Infection. Cell death. I turned to Afton before he could react. "He'll have brain damage," I said quickly. "Even if he wakes, he won't remember any—"

I was expecting it this time, and I ducked the blow to my head, but Afton managed to grab hold of my arm.

"_We_," he snarled, punching me hard in the face with each word. "_Do. Not. Have. Time!_" I gave up dodging and just took it, took my punishment. I told myself it was worth it.

"I'll do it, Afton," said Rolfe. "Let him get the car."

Afton shook his head, but pointed at me and then at the police cruiser. He wanted to punish me, I saw, but he was weighing it all against the time we had. This night was getting worse by the second, and he did not want to end up detectable to the library crew.

I twisted free and moved, complying with Rolfe before Afton could tell him to go to hell. I tried to ignore the sound of Rolfe finishing the job that I'd left undone. This had to look like a car accident. This had to look like the first officer had died in the crash while the second had been thrown through the windshield. I reached through the cracked glass and disengaged the officer's seat belt and the parking break. I locked the gear shift into drive and darted behind the car, feeling Afton's weight beside me as we both shoved hard.

The car roared forward the last ten feet and broke the hydrant, water spraying up into the streetlight like some kind of festival fountain. I scanned the rear bumper, looking for handprints in the metal. We'd killed nomads for less carelessness than that.

"Come on," Afton grunted.

"Let me lead this time," I said.

_Screw you_, he thought.

We ran.

We did not stop until we reached the airfield outside of Kaifeng. We did not stop until the sun was nearly rising. We snuck into the hangar, where we would be safe from the light until we boarded our plane. Afton would use another identity here. Middle-class museum representatives tended to fly commercial, and we would be taking a private plane. Rolfe had had the foresight to stash our clothes—a wealthy British businessman and his assistants—nearby, but I expected a confrontation before we changed. Afton was angry but not so angry that he wanted to explain why he'd damaged two sets of my clothes when he could have kept it to one.

Afton glared at me, dark red eyes fierce. I swallowed hard. I hadn't meant to, but I did. In his eyes, I looked every inch the weakling that I felt myself to be.

Well I wasn't going to stay that way. I steeled myself and strode toward him. He was my commander, but I could be commanding too.

"This was preventable," I told him.

"How?" Afton hissed back.

"If you'd listened to me," I told him, "_either_ time."

I heard a light chuckle and turned to see Rolfe shaking his head.

"Might as well say it out loud," he said. "You'll read it off me anyway," he said, one finger tracing his temple. He looked me in the eye. "I like you, Edward. I do, but you don't have any idea how this works."

I stared at him in confusion, my weight on one foot like a child.

_You understand what I mean?_ asked Rolfe. In his thoughts, he replayed watching Demetri fail to teach Afton our non-verbal code.

_"Why should I help the sanctimonious whelp look good? I don't need a damned freak to make a deal,"_ Afton had said.

_ "He might be a sanctimonious whelp, but he can make himself useful,"_ Demetri answered. _"Now shut up and memorize this."_

Rolfe had allowed himself a chuckle. When Afton looked up, he asked, _"If the Cullen boy is a freak, then what's your Chelsea, a— Oh shit."_

Rolfe eyed me clearly. _It took Demetri and Heidi twenty minutes to break up that fight, for all that I got my digs in. You need to pay more attention around here. Demetri will put up with any sort of crap if it helps him catch his prey, but nobody messes with Chelsea without taking a hit from Afton for it, and you did a lot more than imply she was anything but a nightingale singing on a summer evening in Barcelona._

I could see my face in his eyes. To him, it seemed as thought a tiny fleck of my stupidity had fallen away. Afton treated me like an outside because I'd never failed to act like one. I'd thought I was taking the high road, when I was only making people like Afton and Heidi and Adrienne more and more angry.

I had to earn their respect. I'd known that for a long time, but up until tonight, I'd only thought of my own safety, and Bella's. Now I realized what else that would be worth.

Two policemen. Not criminals, not the types of men I'd once made my food. As far as I knew, they'd both been good men. If Afton had trusted me at the meeting, if Afton had let me take the lead during our getaway... Then they never would have seen us, and they would both be alive.

"You've given me something to think about," I said quietly, not taking my eyes off Rolfe.

_Good_, he thought back.

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What I learned from re-watching _Moonlight_: It's not enough to just have vampires. We have to give them something to do. What I liked about Mick St. John was that he wasn't just a vampire. He was also an investigator. Edward is a vampire who pretends to be this or that ...until Aro gets him a job.

As for "Gao," I just picked a random Chinese surname and then made sure that it was at least reasonably common in northern China. I welcome any critiques and constructive criticism of the cultural, historical and scientific aspects of this story. (Psych majors especially welcome for the next chapter.)

drf24


	31. Ch 30 Harmony

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

Let me know if this seems choppy. Some parts of this chapter were written quite some time ago, before I knew how they were going to fit in with the rest.

This chapter released at this time in honor of the best vampire franchise ever. _Underworld_ is one of my favorite movies period. The sequels have been iffy, but this one was actually good. I can't wait for the next one but darn it they'd better get Speedman on board.

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"But it sounded like singing. My voice rang and shimmered like a bell." –Bella, _Breaking Dawn_

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Afton didn't have Demetri's talent for picking the path.

We'd made it through out plane ride in silence, or at least Afton and I had both been silent. Rolfe had attempted a joke or two, but Afton hadn't spoken, not even to give orders.

I'd kept my eye on Afton's thoughts the whole time. It was a matter of my personal safety. His mind was an angry mass of mincing blades, like a scissor factory gone mad. He knew that our mission's irregularities could be construed as his fault. Caius might prefer to blame me, but there was no lying to Aro. Afton knew that our mission had been, despite its prize, a failure, and that some of the blame would fall on him. Whenever the blades of his thoughts began to slice in unison, whenever he began to shift his weight, whether to raise is voice or his fist—that was when Rolfe would jump in. And then Afton would have to start all over again.

He'd done it before. He'd been doing it the whole time.

Rolfe only thought he didn't have a gift. Maybe that was why he was so interested in my own. It was possible that he was only good at reading people's voices and postures, but I had to wonder if on some level he could hear thoughts.

I wondered why I hadn't noticed sooner. I wondered if I'd spent these past months in a trance.

I wondered what else I hadn't noticed. I thought back over my time in Volterra. Much of it seemed strange, like something that had happened to someone else. Rolfe had been right, though. I hadn't been paying enough attention. I'd focused on my safety and Bella's and nothing more. If I was going to live my life the way I wanted to, in Volterra, then I had to do more than I'd been doing. I had to do more than just get by. I'd been making waves just by standing still.

Our plane had landed in Florence. Or rather, our plane from China had landed in Munich, and we'd changed planes, along with clothes and names, and headed for Florence by way of London. To avoid being traced, we had eschewed human forms of transportation from Florence onward. Afton had been sure that we could make it home before dawn. After all, it was a distance of only eighty kilometers by highway, less if one traveled cross-country. I'd had my doubts but known better than to voice them. Rolfe, apparently, had felt the same way.

I leaned back against a birch trunk and stared up at the brightness slowly growing through the dying leaves. It would be a sunny late-autumn day. Somehow, I'd used to know what the weather would be ahead of time, but I didn't any more.

"We always end up spending the day here," Rolfe said grumpily.

"At least it's only another few miles," I said, pulling my hood down further over my face. The Riserva Naturale Castelvecchio was a protected forest northeast of Volterra, and we were well away from the highway. It was a good deal more comfortable than squatting in a rain gutter, even if the beech and yew offered less protection from the light than I might have liked.

"Are there any tourists around?" Afton asked, staring off toward the way we'd come.

I was silent for a moment. This was the first time that Afton had spoken to me directly since Zhengzhou, and the closest to civil that he'd been since the museum. "Some to the south," I said calmly, "near the Castlevecchio." If I acted as if it had been a simple practical order from a commander to a subordinate, then maybe Afton would act that way too. "I think I can hear someone down in the other furrow, but it's a ways off. We should be safe."

Afton nodded, tucking his cloak more closely around the book. In daylight, I'd managed to get a better look at it. The characters looked like late Song to me, but it was possible that I was wrong, that it was some Yuan-era knockoff. Caius would not be pleased. Without another word, Afton knocked his hood down over his face and strode off, new-fallen twigs snapping underneath his feet.

"Don't follow him," said Rolfe. I hadn't had any intention, but I settled back down. I closed my eyes for a moment, listening to the sound of Afton's footsteps. Then I listened to everything else. It was good to be outdoors again, in woodland, even if the sounds and smells were not all familiar to me.

"If you ask me," Rolfe continued once Afton had gained a little distance, "he just wants a little time to Zen out before he gets back to that adder of a mate he's got."

I rolled my eyes. I didn't like Chelsea but that didn't mean I cared to see a lady spoken ill of. It was the principle of the matter.

"Is this what it's like in Oregon?" asked Rolfe.

I looked over at him. This was the first time that anyone from Volterra other than Aro had asked what my life as a Cullen had been like. I quietly shook my head. "Washington," I said. "I lived in Washington." Rolfe did not interrupt, so I continued. "The Olympic National Forest alone is three times the size of the Riserva, and more mountainous. The types of trees are different, and there are large animals roaming around. Many of them have only limited fear of humans."

"Like grizzly bears?" he asked.

"Haven't you ever been to the United States?" I asked.

Rolfe nodded. "Yes, but all my missions were near cities."

I shook my head. "You need to imagine the scale," I said. "You'd have to go to Siberia to get space like that. There's so much room that when we were hunting we could just..." I held up my hands.

"Let go," he finished for me.

I nodded. Yes. It had felt good to let go. Relax my restraint. In my old life, when I'd gone hunting, I'd used my gift to make sure there were no humans within range and then I'd just _gone_, without fear or consequences. And then I opened my eyes and Rolfe was smiling at me, as if I'd been describing life on Mars.

"I don't think I've ever let go," he admitted to me.

"Men in our position cannot afford to," I said. "We have responsibilities."

_Finally figured that out, have you?_ he thought.

"Oh give me a break. I've hardly been—"

Rolfe and I looked up at the same time. There had been a noise. There had been a noise, but not enough of one. My eyes searched the slope behind us. Nothing. A human would have made more sound. Even a fox would have had a heartbeat. Only one kind of creature could be that still.

"Afton?" I barely breathed, well below human hearing.

"He went the other way," Rolfe reminded me in the same tone. "What do you hear?" he asked.

"Nothing," I answered. "It was only a—"

A hard poke from his thick finger knocked my head down. "_No_, what do you _hear_?"

"What do you mean? I haven't—" And then my breath caught in my throat. I gripped the think trunk of the sapling beside me. The poor thing snapped in half.

"Shit!" Rolfe hissed. "Who's after us?" he asked. "The Romanians aren't dumb enough to send agents this close to the city. Is it—"

"No," I said, grabbing the edge of his cloak as I put myself back on my feet. I breathed out sharply. "I don't hear anything," I said, not wanting to believe it.

"What do you..." then Rolfe's head tilted back in understanding. "Oh," he said. "You don't hear anything."

"No."

So there was only one person it could be. I knocked my head backward against the beech trunk behind me. "What are you doing here?" I hissed. The words flew out of my mouth like birds from a cage. It wasn't a demand or even a question. It was just ..._what was she doing here?_

"Careful or you'll kill that one too," Rolfe muttered, looking up at the tree. That wasn't what I was worried about killing, truth be told.

I opened my eyes in time to see Bella lean out sideways from behind a stout yew, her hood pushed halfway back over her hair, half-apologetic smile on her face.

"Heidi says that Afton always screws up the timing and has to hide out here until sundown. I've been looking for you for two hours."

"That's what _we're_ doing here," said Rolfe, amusement coloring his voice. "I think he asked what _you_ are doing here."

"Looking for my two favorite men?" she asked.

Rolfe laughed. "You snuck out."

"You—" I gaped like a fish. "Do the masters know you're gone?"

"They might," she said. "I didn't ask permission or anything, but it wasn't a secret. I worked double shifts the whole time you were gone to get enough people to take my place in the library for today. I wouldn't be surprised if they figured out what I was doing."

"Bella—" I ran my fingers through my hair. I was shocked that it wasn't falling out, the things this girl put me through.

"All right then," said Rolfe, clapping his two hands together. "I'll just go see how Afton's getting along, shall I?" He slapped me hard on the shoulder as he went. _Looks like she missed you too. Don't wear her out too much. It's a long walk back to Volterra._ I couldn't even choke on his mental images of Bella and me copulating industriously against an obliging ash tree. I was too caught up the raw fact of her presence here. Was she _out_ of her _mind?_

She sat down on a fallen log a few feet away from me, hands demurely folded in her lap as she watched me with a patient smile. My own were like claws, grasping at the air in front of my chest as I paced like an agitated lion. "Bella, you can't just go when you want to."

"Trust me Edward," she said. "This wasn't when I wanted to go."

"The masters—"

"The masters will see you and me walk back into Volterra just as if we were there of our own free will," she said beautifically. "If anything, it will show that they can keep us on a longer leash. Oh, and I did tell Renata where I was going, just in case." She grimaced. "I figured if anyone cared that I was gone, they'd ask Renata first, and she'd probably have a heart attack if she had nothing to tell them." She held up her hands. "I know, I know, we can't have heart attacks. I'm just saying that Renata would find a way."

I felt my body shake from head to heel as if I were covered in spiders.  
I couldn't believe it. I could _not_ believe that Bella would be that stupid.

"When did you go?" I asked.

"Around three in the morning, right after the shift I took for Randall," she recited, as if she'd been expecting the question.

"And what were you going to do if you couldn't find us or if we hadn't stopped here?"

"Wait until sunset and then go right back."

"Bella why—" I threw my head back, as if I could find words ready-made in the air. "What were you—?" It was useless. ...But it did sound as if the masters hadn't tried to stop her from leaving. Which meant that either Demetri was in hot pursuit or that they had actually let her come here. ...and Rolfe hadn't been alarmed when he'd seen her. I went over his parting thoughts in my mind. No... No he hadn't been at all surprised that a woman would leave the compound to meet her mate on the way back from a mission.

When I opened my eyes, she was looking at her left wrist and frowning. "I keep expecting to see my old watch there," she said. "I was going to time you. I figured you'd throw a fit, but I was never really sure how long it would take. Are you done?"

"Yes," I said, breathing in and out. "Yes, I believe so," I answered.

"Look, I'm sorry I frightened you," she was saying. "But I really did check things out before I came. People leave the compound all the time. Heidi did it herself last year to meet Randall on the way back from Norway."

"Has it occurred to you that Heidi might have been lying to get you in trouble with Caius?" I asked, more sharply than I'd meant. "Or even that Caius might have told her to lie to set you up? He's done it before."

"I asked around, Edward. If Heidi's lying, then so is half the guard." It was true. "No one runs off for three weeks in Paris without permission, but people meet teams on the way back home a couple of times a year. At least that's what I picked up."

"Caius can still have you punished when you get back," I said quietly. "He doesn't need an excuse. He doesn't have to listen to you cite precedent." But he wouldn't be able to make it sound like treason. He wouldn't be able to pretend that this was an escape attempt, not unless Demetri caught us doing anything but heading back to town. Even then, Rolfe would have to lie, and I didn't think he would. "I suppose there's no point in worrying about it." I would anyway.

Bella nodded. "Good, because I want to know if there's anything to hunt out here," she said with a sudden light in her voice. "I've never hunted outside. Emmett and Jasper made it sound like so much fun."

I shook my head. "No large game," I told her. "And there are humans. Not close, within a few miles." She'd probably noticed if she'd been looking for us that long. This whole place was crisscrossed with walking paths. "That isn't far enough," I clarified.

"Oh," she said, clearly disappointed. I felt some of my annoyance ebb. She'd never hunted at all, really. Primitive as it was, hunting was one of the few real pleasures inherent in being a vampire. I wondered if she'd ever get to do it.

"Look," she said. "I'm sorry I frightened you, but..." she pursed her lips, hidden thoughts churning. "I haven't seen you for almost two weeks."

It had been twelve days and six hours, actually. We'd left for Kaifeng around three in the morning.

"Whenever you get back, Aro always has his hand practically glued to your neck for the next day and a half." She looked at me, something moving deep down in her dark amber eyes. "So what do we do out here?" she asked.

I shrugged, glad for a change of subject. "We wait, just like last time."

She walked over and sat down beside me. "It's a bit nicer than that storm drain, though," she said. I smiled under my hood, remembering my own very similar conclusion. "How long do you think Rolfe will be gone?" Bella asked.

"All day, if Afton lets him," I answered. It had been kind of Rolfe to leave us alone. It was almost a shame that we weren't really a pair. Long periods of true privacy did not come often in Volterra. With that many vampires in one place, someone was almost always up to something. The etiquette was simply to pretend not to notice. I still wasn't used to it. I suspected that Bella simply hadn't figured out what those muted sounds coming through the walls were. It was not likely to be much on her mind until her first year of bloodlust wore off.

"So can I see it?" she asked.

"See what?"

"You know, Caius's thing. The thing you went to China for," she prompted. Her grin turned sly. "Unless it set off the metal detectors and the cops made Afton strip down to his boxers in the middle of the airport." Her tone was teasing, but it made me sick to my stomach. I looked away.

"Oh shit," she said, all joking falling away from her tone.

"Our encounter with the police didn't turn out so well," I explained.

"God, Edward, I'm sorry," she said.

I forced myself to meet her eyes. "You didn't know," I told her. This had been supposed to be an easy mission. No conflicts. No killing. Just there and back. I could remember putting my hands on her shoulders, twelve days earlier, and assuring her that there was nothing to worry about.

"It wasn't really a delivery mission, was it?" she asked softly. "That's just what Aro wanted you to tell us."

I shook my head. "No, it was supposed to be just that," I told her. "It went wrong is all."

Her eyes were deep with concern. I wanted to drown there. "Did they make you do it yourself?" she asked.

I shook my head.

"Did you do all you could?"

"Almost," I told her. I could have done more if I'd realized in time. I'd wanted to spare her this, but I couldn't. I wasn't strong enough to hold all of this by myself. The words spilled out into the space between us. The look on the officer's face as he'd seen Rolfe smash through the window like a monster out of a horror film, the feeling of neck, spine, skull and dashboard. I put the thoughts into the air, and she handed them back to me, in order.

Then I got to the future.

She shook her head. "But what could you do that's more than you're already doing?"

"Give it my all," I said. "Stop holding back. I don't like the way Volterran vampires live, and they've been picking up on that."

"So hide it," she said.

"I'll also have to change it," I told her. "I can make myself respect them if I try."

She leaned forward. "But they kill people, Edward, and not just when the secret's in danger. They do it for food and they like it."

I nodded. "That's the part I can't reconcile," I admitted. "I guess I'll have to try not to think about it. But if I can save even one life by changing my attitude—"

"What about your life?" she asked. "Edward there is nothing wrong with your attitude. You've got a right to disapprove of the way other people live if you want to. It's not like you go around shouting fire and brimstone at them every second."

"That's how things should be," I said, in as measured a tone as I could manage, "but it's not how things are."

She shook her head, not looking at me. That was what she did when she knew she'd lost an argument. "You've already twisted yourself into a pretzel for them," she said. "You shouldn't have to do any more."

No, no I shouldn't. I didn't want to admit it to myself, but it was better to bend than break. If I focused on my original mission, Carlisle's vision, not Aro's, then perhaps I could find some dignity in it.

I breathed in and out. She should be doing it too, I knew, but I couldn't tell her so. If Heidi had agreed to help her with this little field trip, then maybe she wouldn't need to. Aro and Caius might let her leave in the spring, and she might be able last that long just by keeping her mouth shut.

Spring...

I stared up at the scanty branches above us, trying to pin down the hint of music in my memory. The trees hadn't turned all the way. There was still plenty of green, but the flush of the season was gone. Life seemed precarious. "We should move to more cover," I said. She nodded and rose to her feet. I'd spotted a cluster of pines a way up the slope and nodded toward it. The cloaks protected us from the light, but there was no sense taking chances.

Telling her about Zhengzhou and about my plans had cleared my head. It was a temporary feeling, perhaps a side effect of being outdoors without any crowds of screaming voices and with my minders at a good distance, but I felt like everything was going to be all right. I closed my eyes, just breathing in the scent of the pines and earth and her. She didn't say anything. Perhaps she felt the same way. I should have wondered why she was being so quiet—after all, she'd said that she'd snuck out to see me—but I was past caring.

A hesitant, bell-like voice broke my reverie.

"_Sister golden hair surprise_..."

I opened my eyes and looked at her curiously.

"You were humming," she said.

"I was?" I asked. I leaned back a bit. Yes, yes I had been. I looked around. The pines, the way the light scattered... "I know what this place reminds me of," I told her. I couldn't help smiling. "Rose and Emmett's wedding day."

"You've never told me about that," said Bella.

"She found Emmett while she was out hunting deer."

"Rosalie hunted deer? Like in _Last of the Mohicans_? No way."

"She hunted all the time," I said, a little defensively. She'd spend hours cleaning herself up afterward, though. This was before hairspray."

She laughed. I'd meant it seriously, though. Rose's fastidiousness had seemed very odd to me. She hadn't been so squeamish about her first intended and his friends—not that they had deserved better.

I looked over at Bella, dark hair framing her face as she smiled off into the dappled light.

Rosalie had been squeamish about Emmett, though. She'd been able to hide it from everyone but me. I remembered a morning like this one, nearing a year after Emmett's change. He'd been devoted to Rosalie from the start, in his way. But it was only once his newborn bloodlust wore thin, becoming the manageable hunger of a mature vampire, that the nature of his interest had changed. I'd watched Rosalie drumming her fingers on Esme's kitchen table, she'd wanted Emmett; she'd wanted him from the beginning, but she could remember how much it hurt.

I hadn't said anything. I'd overheard enough thoughts over the years to know that she would probably be all right, but I hadn't said a word.

"How did she find Emmett?" Bella was asking. "You told me she had to carry him a long way."

I nodded, wondering how to begin the story. I could remember it well and I knew I'd never be able to describe it. I decided to start somewhere else.

"Emmett had lots of brothers and sisters," I began. His memories of his human life had been clear at first. "He was fourth or fifth out of eight or nine. I think one of the reasons he didn't seem as averse to you as Rose did is that he was hoping to have a big family again one day." I brushed a pine branch out of my way and stepped closer. "Still, growing up wasn't easy for him. If anything truly fine came the family's way, it went to one of the oldest children—or the youngest. If by some chance, or more often through his own enterprise, he did end up with some extra money, he was expected to give it to one of his siblings, a brother's education, a sister's medicine. That was just how families got by in those days. Everyone worked so that everyone could do as best they could.

"Emmett went out hunting one day and ran across a bear that had had a similar idea. It got the drop on him..." He'd known he was going to die. "He'd just started to black out, and then he said the animal gave up a great noise." I could feel the scent of the woods, see the great hanks of shaggy fur. "And then there was Rosalie." I could see her gold hair like a halo around her face, leaning down with the light behind her.

"Emmett hardly looked alive when Rosalie brought him to the house," I told her. I could remember the pleading in Rosalie's voice as she'd begged Carlile to turn him. It was the most sincere thing I'd seen from her since the day she'd killed her first fiancé. "Rosalie couldn't turn him herself because..." I closed my eyes.

"Because she wasn't sure she could," said Bella.

I nodded. "Yes. She begged Carlisle for him." For a boy with a sweet face whom she should have known absolutely nothing about. And yet she'd been completely right about him.

"And Carlisle didn't turn him away," Bella said with a smile in her voice.

"She stayed with him, you know," I said, rembering as I said it. "The whole time he was changing." It had been unreal. I'd been used to compassion from Carlisle and Esme, but that was the first time I'd seen Rosalie do anything selfless.

"Rosalie was the best and most beautiful girl Emmett had ever seen, and she wanted him and no one else." I could remember the pair of us, my brother and me. For weeks on end she'd been all he could talk about. "She even talked like a fancy lady," I added in a halfhearted imitation of what had once been Emmett's accent.

I couldn't hear her thoughts but I could tell they were there. I could feel her eyes on me, waiting for the next part of the story. But the _next_ didn't fit the story. Next was Rosalie agonizing over what to do about Emmett. Their feelings for each other weren't so different, and she could feel time pushing, demanding that things progress, but the what had happened to her didn't just go away. It had sharpened the gold of her second courtship to a knife's edge. She should have been able to just be happy about it, but a kiss under a maple tree couldn't just be about her and Emmett. It had to be about someone else. It had to be revenge.

"I know you must miss him," said Bella.

"I miss both of them." It was true. Rosalie hadn't liked me at first, but she'd been my sister longer than Emmett had been my brother. There was no red in the leaves above us, but some of them had turned yellow, still heavy and full of life. Just not for long.

"You said this reminded you of their wedding day," she prompted. I nodded. That was as good a place to return to the story as any.

We'd left Emmett's home area, but we were still living in the mountains. There were no visitors to see us, so we had it during the day." His eyes drifted off. He was somewhere far away. "And even if anyone had seen us, they were a different kind of superstitious. There's no telling what they'd have thought, but I doubt it would have been 'vampires.'" Some of the local peoples, white and Indian, told legends about glowing spirits, but we hadn't been forced to negotiate with them the way we had with the Quileutes, so I hadn't paid it as much attention.

"Vampires don't sparkle," she said with a honyed droplet of amusement in her voice.

I rolled my eyes her way. "'Sparkle'?"

"What?" she asked.

"Sparkle?" I asked again. "Really?"

"That's what it looks like," she said.

I shook my head. Maybe it was that she'd only seen vampires in the sun when she'd been human. I hadn't seen Carlisle's skin in daylight until after I'd been turned. Rosalie hadn't _sparkled_ on the day of her wedding. Diamonds sparkled. That's why one saw so many of them. There was only one Rosalie, and even she had never been so beautiful as she was on that day.

"Come here," I said, getting to my feet.

"What is it?" she asked, but she'd already shifted her weight to do as I'd said.

"Just come here," I said, mentally scouting the area to determine if we were unobserved. We had a moment but perhaps only a moment.

I took her right hand by the wrist and moved us toward a shaft of daylight coming down through the trees. The sun was high now; it was not quite noon. I drew her forward and held her hand palm-down in the light.

I heard her lips open as she took it all in. Vampire skin looked smooth in dim lighting, but in sun the facted surface caught the light and threw it back in an uncanny harmony, showing colors that humans did not have words for. I released Bella's hand and watched her turn it palm-up as she flexed her fingers, light and color on a female form.

...all of it perfectly aligned to fascinate and attract her prey. A flawless, deadly skin.

"There," I said. "Like that." Except she'd been shining with something that had nothing to do with death. None of us had been killers that day. I cleared my throat and moved back to my place beneath the pines. "You wouldn't believe what Rose and Esme did with the flowers," I said, a bit lamely. It had been spring in the Ozarks. Plant after plant reaching up out of the earth to touch the hem of my sister's gown. Esme hadn't let her go to a tailor, so they'd bought quality fabric and she'd sewed it herself. "This was before Esme became an architecht. Sulpicia's little garden doesn't come close. She outdid herself for Rose's wedding. We all did.

"She was late, you know, working on her dress for an hour. It gave me time to re-tune the piano, at least. It sprung something when we carried it outside."

"Did Emmett get impatient?" she asked, turning away from the light. A tiny bit of it was still playing in a lock of her hair. I should have told her to put her hood back up.

"He'd been impatient for weeks," I answered, remembering my brother's preferred method for dealing with frustration in those days. "I was beginning to think he'd smash all the boulders on the mountain and have to go looking for more."

She laughed, and the breeze picked up, rustling the loosest of the yellow-gold leaves.

"Carlisle performed the ceremony," I continued. "They said they didn't care if he wasn't a real pastor any more. We celebrated for hours. I stayed at the piano and played almost every song I knew."

She was watching me, dark amber eyes intent. I knew I wasn't telling the whole story. Nothing in my words could create an echo of the gold light on that green spring day. I tried to picture the look on Rosalie's face through her short veil, the clasp of Esme's fingers on the flowers, hear the timbre of Carlisle's voice as he read a passage from the Bible—a short one, at Emmett's insistance.

"You're humming again," she said.

I looked at her but I didn't stop. She crossed the few feet between us and held out her hand. I took it, and before I knew it, we were moving in time.

She was hesitant. She didn't know the steps of this dance. She probably didn't know any dances that had steps, but she mirrored my movements gracefully, never stepping on my feet or tripping on the uneven ground.

It was only the edges of a song, grounded but wistful, not like what I'd actually played that day, but it fit my mood, and she filled in a phrase here and there as our feet beat a hollow harmony into the leafy ground. I couldn't help judging. The pitch wasn't perfect and she scooped the low notes. She hadn't grown up with music or dancing lessons the way Rosalie and I had. But her timing was good, and her voice was very pleasant. Maybe she'd taken chorus as a schoolchild. Voices in the desert.

I hadn't danced that day, not even with Esme. I'd told myself that I was content to sit at the piano without a partner. I hadn't danced with my sister on her wedding day.

The breeze came through, thick and cool, until the dry leaves rustled like bells. We stopped moving, and a wave of yellow, petal-like leaves trailed down from their places like streamers. I watched hrough the reflection in her eyes. This wasn't that spring day long ago. Summer was over, and I was far from home.

"What happened next?" she asked.

"Twilight," I said quietly. "The day ended. They always do."

I still had my hand on her waist. I let go but she didn't. "But what happened next?" she said with a silken thread of pleading. "Night isn't so bad. What happened that night? The next day? I want to hear about years, even boring years."

The wind blew again, shaking the air around us.

"After that, were they happy?" she asked.

"Yes," I told her. "Bella, they were very happy with each other. I don't know how either of them got so lucky." The hunter and the banker's daughter. The woodsman marries the princess. Could it ever have happened in the human world?

I'd seen the image, secondhand in Rosalie's mind, superimposed on the face of a curly-haired child. Rosalie had seen Emmett as a man with a bear's strength and a child's unadulterated capacity for love. She'd known what he was with one look.

Bella managed to smile, but she still looked sad.

I sat back down and closed my eyes. What was I thinking? What was the point of telling her these things? I should have been thinking about how to conduct myself with Caius. I should have been thinking about how to gain the respect and trust of the guard so that the pointlessness in Zhengzhou would not be repeated. Perhaps a public apology to Chelsea, if I could stomach it.

The soft ground shifted as she sat down beside me. The scent of her skin was gently sweet against the forest around us. And she laid her hand on my wrist.

I looked up, looking first at her fingers and then meeting her eye. She'd done it a hundred times before. Maybe it was the long days I'd spent away from her. Maybe it was the revelation in China, but the words jumped out of my mouth before I realized that I'd meant to say them.

"Why do you keep doing that?"

"What?" she asked with a butterfly-like flutter in her voice. She actually looked flustered, poor thing. She suddenly looked strikingly human, minus only the blush in her cheeks.

I looked from her hand to her eyes and back. She let go of my wrist. So it wasn't just a habit, then. At first, I'd thought she was just being clever, acting like my mate in public, like I'd told her, but she did it even when we were alone. Always casual touches, never anything that she couldn't excuse if she needed to save face.

"I-if you don't want me to, if you _really_ don't want me to—" She was practically shaking now, as if I'd caught her doing something terrible.

I opened my mouth and closed it again, not really sure what to say. I had no idea why she was so upset. My impulse was to tell her that I didn't mind—which I didn't, not really—but how could what she'd done be so shameful that she'd react in this way?

_Oh_, was my rather inarticulate thought as I realized what had been going on.

A touch on the wrist wasn't a seductive gesture—for most people. But this was Bella.

This was as much my fault as hers. Here I was telling her romantic stories and then dancing like a fool, so wrapped up in my memories that I overlooked how she might interpret them. I should have known better. She was a newborn. For the first year, her hunger for blood would eclipse any other. But she might go through the motions of attraction to a man out of fear or obligation or, more likely, if she simply thought she was supposed to.

Well she didn't have to. I would help and protect her no matter what. I held my breath a moment, wondering how to explain. "I think I know what you're doing," I said, as gently as I could.

I'd expected her to look sad or embarrassed or at least more flustered, but her hands and posture went stiff. I held back a silent curse. I hadn't meant to frighten her.

"Please don't tell," she said quietly, voice cracking like frost on a puddle.

"Whom would I tell?" I asked quickly. I wanted to put my hands on her shoulders and say everything would be all right. "And there's nothing to tell. This is no one's business but yours and mine."

She stared at me, confusion melting into her fear. "But you..." She looked away, one hand covering the bottom half of her face.

"Bella," I said as gently as I could, "I know it can be confusing, playacting in front of the others. It protects you from animals like Byron and it gets us privileges that mated pairs enjoy in Volterra, but you don't need to pretend anything with me, not when we're alone." It had the added benefit of being why Adrienne hadn't tried to act on her little fantasy of cornering me in the showers but now was not the time to bring that up.

"Oh," she answered, still looking off into the ground. I wouldn't have known what to say either. Her hands flexed in her lap.

I had to admit that this presented a problem for me. On one hand, I hardly disliked that this complex, attractive creature was paying me attention. I had not stopped being a man when I'd become a slave. And there were so many things that I wanted. To be touched, to be looked at, to be admired. I so wanted her to admire me.

It hadn't only been my relationship with the rest of the guard. I'd been playing with fire with Bella as well and I'd been doing it for far too long. I was her only true friend here, _and_ I had taken on the role of her mate in the Volterran sense, however the concept might repulse me. If there was a recipe for making a woman fall in love with someone, that was surely it.

_"Man up,"_ I could practically hear Emmett's voice in my ears.

I could make her love me if I wanted to. I could make her love me and it would be easy. But I was a gentleman. A gentleman did not treat a lady so.

"So you, um," she said, breathing in and out. "It bothers you when I touch you like that?"

"Bella I don't want you to think..." I closed my eyes. Surely she didn't think that I'd expect her to do more than hold my hand? I didn't think I'd misled her to the point where she could think _that_ little of me. "I don't want you to think that you have to give me anything more that you have already."

"But ...do you mind?" she asked.

How could I possibly accept even a small sign of her favor when she was still so dependent on me?

"No." I said. It was the truth.

She didn't move to touch me right then. But she would. After we'd finished combat practice or if we caught a moment alone, then she would.

"So what did you mean 'privileges'?" she asked.

"Oh," I answered, glad of the chance to change the subject. "The bond between mates is the closest thing that vampires have to a social institution. It's why the rest of the guard doesn't question why we spend so much time alone together." Of course, there was no need to mention specifically what they thought we were doing. "Otherwise, they'd think it was the two yellow-eyed freaks plotting mischief. And you're not supposed to ask about what goes on in private between a pair."

"Really? Because Renata asks about you a lot," Bella told me.

"Private things?" I asked, confused. I was sure that I would have noticed. Renata had no talent for hiding her thoughts, especially not embarrassing ones.

"All kinds of things," Bella said. "How we met, what you're like. I don't think it's about you specifically, not really. I guess she's never had anyone to talk to about these things before."

There was a long silence. She closed her eyes and I watched her breathe in and out. Rosalie had looked at Emmett once and known exactly what he was. I would never know what Bella was.

"Its peaceful out here," she said. "I used to hate the woods, back when I'd visit my dad in the summer. They made the world seem small, like there was no horizon." She breathed again. "Now they make the world seem full."

"Are things so very different for you?" I asked.

Her head tilted to the side, as if she'd meant to nod but had thought the better of it. "I miss seeing things the way I used to," she said at last. "Some of the things I've figured out I don't like knowing."

"Me too," I admitted. I'd learned that I wasn't as brave as I'd thought I was.

"It is peaceful here," I agreed. I would have to thank Afton for choosing this place. That might be a good way to start putting things back together. I was tempted to spend the time planning, but Bella seemed content to watch the day grow between the leaves, and I found I was as well.

I still felt that way, hours later, when we walked back into Volterra, Rolfe and Afton ahead as I followed with Bella at my elbow. The gravity of her little stunt seemed to be coming home to her. I could hear her breath rattling jaggedly in and out of her chest as the late-twilight shadows of the compound was cast down over our heads. I could hear Caius in the audience chamber, expecting Afton with an accounting of the acquisitions, but Bella was as tense as a wound string beside me, eyes flicking left and right as if waiting for him to appear.

I wasn't in much better shape. My shoulders tensed and I forced them to relax. It wasn't a good homecoming. Sometimes, when I returned to Volterra, the walls and the sharp vampiric thoughts around me made me feel safe, reminded me that there was one place in the world where I did not have to pretend to be human. Today was a bad day. Today, I felt like a wolf walking straight toward the trap.

The swarm of thoughts seemed off today, sharper and more animated. Fragmented images and words flicked in and out of my awareness like shards of mirror in a windstorm. A breach in conduct somewhere. A fight. Jane figured in this somewhere, but had she started the altercation or come in and prevented the combatants from knocking the walls down?

It was almost refreshing. Aside from Oleg's execution, this was the first fight that had occurred in Volterra in which neither Bella nor myself had been involved. We hadn't even been in the city.

The new evening receptionist got to her feet, smiling earnestly as we walked by. I wondered how long she would last. Maybe it would be her in the feasting hall next, getting a syringe to the chest. Perhaps Aro would not require me to be present this time.

There was a scattered noise of footsteps behind us. Afton and Rolfe kept moving, but Bella turned around. Renata stopped at the edge of the room, motioning sharply to her. She had news, all words and impressions flashing in her thoughts, and she wanted to be the first to tell.

I hesitated, half a step behind Afton and Rolfe. I saw Bella mouth the word "Later" as Renata nodded eagerly.

"Maybe you shouldn't come in with us," I whispered quickly as we caught up to the others. Her entire defense was that leaving the compound wasn't a serious matter. She should continue to act as if that were the case. She shook her head tightly. "An innocent front can protect you better than standing next to me will," I pointed out.

"Who says I'm the one who needs protecting?" she answered.

By then, Afton had the door open.

Bella practically had a death grip on my arm as entered the main hall. There had been a feast while we'd been in China; I could still smell it in the air. I felt a pang as I hoped that Bella had managed on her own.

Caius sat in the central throne, as I'd expected, but Aro and Marcus were there as well. Aro's face held his usual benignly interested smile, but it was thinner than usual. I wondered if he knew what had gone wrong in Zhengzhou.

Rolfe was carrying the book under his cloak, and he brought it forward in a single, graceful move, a genuflection.

Caius's hands came up slowly, like the ghosts of flowers. "This..." he said, thoughts quickly appraising the age and nature of the item, "is not what I sent you to acquire."

"No, Master," said Afton, "but we thought you would like it."

_Tang dynasty..._ Caius mused. _But illegitimately obtained. No item is worth as much without its provenance._

"The original items are still within our reach," Afton said, a little too quickly. "If we send another team—"

Caius made a slashing movement with his hand and Afton fell silent. "You mean you failed," said Caius. Hot waves moved in my chest. It should not have been so satisfying to watch anyone on the receiving end of Caius's discipline ...but it was.

Afton bowed his head, accepting his master's words with a deliberate dignity.

I realized quickly that he wasn't going to try to pin all the blame on me, at least not directly. He knew that Caius would see it as weakness. Afton would wait for Caius to ask what happened—which he might not do at all—and then allow him to draw his own conclusion. Considering how little prompting Caius seemed to need to punish me, it wasn't much of an improvement. Whatever else, none of Caius's attention seemed to be on Bella at the moment, and that was worth something.

Finally daring to breathe, I looked past Caius to Aro and Marcus. Marcus was watching Bella and me from behind his lank waves of heavy hair, but he seemed distracted. _...doesn't make sense; Jane's condition has been stable for decades. But lately—_

_Jane should be here_, Caius thought, the sharpness of his annoyance drowning out Marcus's impressions. He picture Afton enjoying a few moments of Jane's attention, just enough to be commensurate with the minor infraction of coming back with the wrong grocery items. Without her, his main options consisted of Felix and a conventional beating, which would take long enough to draw a crowd.

Whatever this afternoon's mystery event had been, it had pulled Jane away from her post.

Aro was looking at me suspiciously. "Were there any other points of interest in your journey, my dear ones?" he asked.

Afton and Rolfe were silent, both wishing that the other would speak first.

"Yes, Master," I said.

_Shut up!_ Afton thought intensely.

"We managed to obtain the book without immediate detection," I said carefully. Bella's hand shifted to my upper arm, as if she wanted to pull me away. "However, we encountered two local police officers during our escape. We killed them. There was no evidence."

"A serious matter," said Caius. When random humans told stories, they were ignored. Authority figures, even minor ones like police officers, were more likely to be believed. "What did they see?"

"Our faces," I said. "Nothing more."

Afton was starting to breathe again. _That's right,_ I thought carefully. _I'm not going to throw you under the bus._ I'd been ordered to speak, so I'd spoken. When ordered again, I would do so again, but I would do no more than that. That was what members of the guard did: Follow orders first, and then protect each other.

Aro's eyes did not leave mine. He knew there was more. He knew I had my reasons for not saying it out loud. A thick, cold feeling entered my guts.

Was Aro starting to trust my judgment?

_As soon as Caius dismisses you,_ Aro thought in my direction with a strong mental image of his hand on my shoulder. I nodded, as subtly as I could.

"You say that my original targets are still in Kaifeng," Caius said to Afton, a hint of a sneer in the back of his throat. "Are they no longer for sale?"

"They are still for sale, Master," said Afton.

"I see," said Caius. "And whom do you recommend that we send to fetch them in your place?" he asked.

Afton's mouth didn't make any sound when it opened.

I felt Bella turn her head, just slightly as she met my eyes. I could see she understood what was happening: Afton was being demoted.

"Randall," said Afton, at last. "He should be ...reliable."

Caius's smile was like ice. "Randall, then," he said. "Go and tell him to come to me. Rolfe, Edward, you may go."

Afton didn't look at anyone as he left through the side door, but his mental image of me was rather vivid. This was his own fault, but he did not see it that way. I took in a breath. I would win him over. I would win them all over. I would be patient and enthusiastic. I would give the Volturi mission my all, and I would win them over.

Rolfe and I turned and left the way we'd come. I gave a gentle tug on Bella's sleeve. She actually shook as she realized she wasn't going to be punished. Good. Then she'd think twice before sneaking out again.

"You dodged a bullet," I murmured as the door swung shut behind us. Aro was expecting me to meet him in the hallway, but I had a moment. "Caius wasn't even thinking about you. Something more interesting happened while we were gone."

"What?" she asked intently, both hands clenching on the hem of her cloak.

I jerked my chin over her shoulder. "I think someone is very eager to tell you."

Bella turned and saw Renata hurrying toward us. "Bella," she said in a loud whisper. "You won't believe it! It's so strange!"

"What happened, Renata?" Bella's voice sounded stiff, mechanical. Behind us, I noticed Rolfe hovering near the exit, deciding whether to turn around and join us or just eavesdrop.

"It's Jane! She went crazy, and she bit Felix!"

The images in Renata's mind were flaky but sincere. She hadn't seen it herself; she'd only pulled things together from the collective recounting of five or more versions of the story. In Renata's version, Jane was like a raccoon gnawing on a hysterical black bear two hundred times her size.

"Okay, this I've got to hear," said Rolfe, lumbering toward us.

"She bit Felix?" asked Bella.

"Yes!" Renata insisted. "And she wouldn't explain why. She Just said that Felix should stay out of her way or something."

"That doesn't make sense," said Rolfe. "Felix already stays out of Jane's way." Renata turned and looked at him. "He does! He only pretends he's not afraid of her."

"Well Felix was trying to pick her up at the time," Renata explained. "You know how she hates that. He said the noise was getting to him."

"What noise?" I asked.

"Marcell," explained Renata. "He'd been screaming for over an hour. Felix told Jane she should give it a rest."

"Wait," Bella snapped. "Jane was using her gift on Marcell? For an hour straight?" Her breath came in ragged. Her mouth formed the words, "Oh God."

"Bella, sometimes newborns go wild," I explained. "Jane was probably just defending herself. It's far more likely that Felix is the one who overreacted."

Bella was pressing her lips together, actually shaking. I wasn't even certain she'd heard me. "F-for an hour..."

I placed my hands on her shoulders, "Bella," I said, but she didn't look up, staring down into a stormcloud that only she could see. I touched her chin with my hand until her eyes met mine. And then I realized that I had nothing to say. "It isn't your fault." I managed to smile a little. She felt responsible for him, probably because he was mine. "You can't blame yourself for what Marcell does or for Jane. We have to keep Marcell from running wild in some way, and we don't have hundreds of miles of open forest. It's just the price we pay for carrying out a plan." _Our plan_, I tried to put into my gaze. The plan that would keep her parents safe.

She pressed her lips together and nodded, fingers trailing over my free hand.

"Aro wants me," I said.

She nodded again. "You should go."

"We'll go see him ourselves," said Renata, and I felt a wave of gratitude. I knew how much the newborn frightened her. "It was hours ago. He's probably fine now."

I turned as I walked away, Renata was putting a hand on Bella's shoulder. She didn't push her away.

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This chapter was tricky. Some parts of this event only work from Bella's perspective and others only work from Edward's, so I ran through it both ways. I was originally going to go straight to what will now be thirty-one (that being the text that was mostly written when twenty-nine went up). I've had some of these forest scenes ready to go for a very long time, though.

drf24


	32. Ch 31 Gratitude

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

I can't get over how much I liked _Underworld: Awakening_. Don't get me wrong, I like _Twilight_, but _Underworld_ completely stole my brain. Years ago, I saw the first one starting on TV and said "Isn't that the movie that had all the White Wolf fans in a knot? I guess I'll watch the beginning." My jaw hit the floor from scene one and I was glued to it as the sun went down over my shoulder. I'm glad that you guys like IKMD and I'm enjoying the way I get to explore a wider scope, but _In Sheep's Clothing_ is hands down the best fan story I've ever written.

This chapter was going to be a lot longer, but Camilla10's and others' repeated requests for recaps have convinced me that shorter intervals between chapters might be a good thing, and this one happened to have a good, clean place to make the cut.

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"But I don't count that as a kiss, Jacob. I think of it more as an assault." –Bella, _Eclipse_

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_Damn._ And things had actually been going well.

The first few days since my return from China had been less chaotic than I'd feared. Aro had reacted blandly to my mental account of our misadventure. The deaths of two police officers were of little note to him. He was far more interested in my Rolfe-induced epiphany.

_Dare I to hope, young Edward, that your attitude toward your duty may have changed for the better?_ he had thought. _No, don't answer out loud. Caius and I had more direct means of getting you to behave. I will be pleased if we do not have to use them._

It was disturbing, but he was right. Jane and Felix and the constant threats against my and Bella's safety had kept me in line, but I hadn't been giving the Volturi cause my all. The chance to preserve innocent lives, to not have their blood on my hands or my conscience... That was worth a great deal to me.

_One could even call it a blending of my friend Carlisle's purpose my own_, Aro had mused. I'd up, meeting his sly, coaxing grin. _And who better to accomplish it than you, young Edward?_

I'd looked away. I'd had to, or he would have seen it on my face.

Aro was right and I knew it.

A vampire living among the Volturi, truly becoming one of them, but doing so in keeping with my father's ideals? It would be a challenge, and a worthy one. It would be enough to fill a life. In the process, Aro would receive almost exactly what he'd wanted from me since he'd first forced me to join the guard—a dedicated and obedient servant of the Volturi cause.

Marcus had watched and said nothing, as always. I found myself paying little attention to my quietest master. He had always posed the least threat.

Today, Aro had required my attention in the library, absorbing my own thoughts of our mission at his leisure while he pretended to watch the others read. Bella and Renata had gone to see Marcell every day. The story of Jane's overzealousness in our absence had instilled in Bella an almost feral dedication to Marcell and Caroly. I doubt she realized it, but it was getting her noticed. She was also beginning to get on Jane's nerves, but she probably didn't realize that either.

As it turned out, Felix hadn't been the one who'd overreacted the day of my return from China. Jane had completely lost her patience. Jane's thoughts were more irritated than I remembered, but that might be from he very real whispers that she perceived falling silent as she came near. When Bella had gone to see Marcell, she hadn't even needed Renata's help. The newborn had been curled up on his side, unmoving, and had not responded when she'd spoken to him. Bella's voice had been strangely hollow as she'd described it to me. For some reason, what Jane had done to Marcell seemed to haunt her. I'd told her that she just had to accept that these things were normal here, but she'd only looked away.

What I didn't tell her was that the whole thing made me want to wring Jane's neck like a chicken. Just because Bella could be a fool with her kind heart didn't mean I didn't want to turn the people who abused it into lawn mulch. Back in Forks, Bella had forgiven Tyler for nearly killing her with his van, but I'd spent two weeks straight reminding myself not to divest him of both arms.

Master Aro had forgiven me for my fantasies. He understood how I was trying to control them.

According to Bella and Renata, Caroly had spent the past two weeks climbing the walls in one of the holding cells. Under other circumstances, Aro might have been interested, but the speed of her change was easy to explain, overshadowed by his other goals and, from a strategic standpoint at least, not particularly useful. I'd expected him to order me to turn another human any day now, but he hadn't. I was still waiting for that shoe to drop, but while I was waiting, something else had hit the floor, and hard.

I dropped down the stairs from the library toward the ground floor, taking the steps two at a time. There was no reason to rush, not really, but I didn't want to let this lie. Bella would be waiting for me in the practice tunnel by now, and I had news. Life in Volterra had become almost livable over these past few weeks, like a heavy weight that becomes easier to carry. I'd come to think that, in time, Bella and I would grow used to everything that we did not like about this place.

But then this. I'd have to tell her, and there was no sense putting it off. There wasn't anything we could _do_ about it, but it was better that she heard it from me. Even if Aro didn't decide to make things common knowledge, she would find out eventually.

I was halfway to the tunnel before I realized that the fight was already going on. I dropped my pretense and ran full-speed toward the entrance.

I wondered who had attacked her or—worse—if she'd been the one to start the altercation. My mouth went dry. That would mean danger _and_ punishment. But by the time I reached the hatchway, the tenor of the sounds had already changed:

"Now turn your arm the other way."

"I don't know..."

"Just try it."

"Wait. No, _wait!_ I'm not ready!"

"Too bad! Here I come."

It took me a moment to realize what was happening. A few minutes earlier, Aro had needed to leave the library and he'd left me to my own devices. I'd gone looking for Bella. I'd walked toward the lower levels to see if she was with Marcell or Caroly, but I'd only heard Jane down there. Not having the least desire to speak with her, I'd turned elsewhere.

Bella was only hard to find when she was alone. I leaned back against the wall, closed my eyes and listened, letting my attention drift upward. Felix and Demetri were talking about Budapest. Rolfe was helping Heidi plan her next fishing trip. Randall was walking down an empty hallway, not thinking about much in particular. I let my attention drift upward. The library was full of readers. Someone was viewing a film in the third-floor lounge. Marcus was watching human traffic on the sidewalk, four or five floors beneath him. Above that was the tower. The masters did not like me to think about the tower.

I realized that I'd done the same thing on my first day here. It was like looking out a window covered in frost with the wind whipping the trees. It was strange to think of that day now, from a calm place. I could hardly believe that panicked, angry boy was me.

When I finally found Renata's voice, it wasn't where I'd expected it to be. Bella was with her, as I'd thought, but the background and the lighting were all wrong. I shook my head, wondering what was going on and hurried down the hallway before anything stupid happened.

The tunnel entrance cover was leaning against the wall, not simply placed to the side, where Bella and I usually left it. This was neater, almost apologetic. Had coming here been Renata's idea?

There was a scuffling sound below, thick and heavy. For some reason, I wasn't concerned.

"See?" I heard Bella saying. "That was better, wasn't it?"

I hesitated at the entranceway, wondering if I should say anything.

"I didn't know it worked like that." Renata's voice was quiet, even for her.

"I thought you'd been with the Volturi for a long time," said Bella.

"I guess I have," she answered.

"So how come you never learned how to fight? You're going to need to know for when we start giving Marcell his lessons."

Renata shrugged without meeting Bella's eyes, shoulders pulled in toward her neck like a child with a sunburn.

"Even I'm learning how to fight, and it's just Edward teaching me."

"Oh thanks," I called down sardonically. I dropped down into the tunnel, as always. Bella and Renata looked toward the rush of air. Renata was smiling. The timid little mouse was smiling as if she were actually enjoying something. It was unnerving.

"I only mean that you haven't been a fighter the way Demetri and Rolfe are," Bella told me.

I raised an eyebrow. I was not going to play mollified.

"Well it was nice of you to show me," Renata said.

"Any time," Bella told her. "I mean it. I could stand to practice with more than one person. Not that you aren't great—" She said, quickly reaching over to touch my arm.

"You're very welcome," I told her.  
I was suddenly glad that it was only Renata in here with us. Her constant fearfulness could become annoying, but at least she was sincere.

I shouldn't have been surprised that Bella was trying to teach Renata a thing or two. She'd been as attentive to our combat lessons as she had been to her Italian and chemistry and sociology books. Over the past several months, I'd seen Bella grow more and more independent. By now, she could control her thirst almost as well as my brother Jasper, and she was still making progress. I was more worried about her anger, that constant, resentful wilfullness that discordantly reminded me of how determined she was to ignore the more perilous aspects of our situation. Or perhaps it was only that I was more likely to meet anger than thirst when I told her my news.

"Anything interesting happen upstairs?" she asked with a smile. In the corner of my eye, I saw Renata's posture change. She did like to gossip.

I paused. I was sure she noticed. "Nothing worth mentioning," I said, though her eyes narrowed when I did. I remembered that she'd told me once that she could tell when I was lying. If that was true, then she'd probably figure out that I was only waiting until we could speak privately. "Caius is thinking about sending Randall to Japan after China, perhaps with Afton as his assistant." The truth was that Aro had finally shared his predictions with his brothers. Caius wanted to begin gathering anything that the felt merited preservation and moving it to safe places far from Aro's predicted front. Considering that the predicted front covered most of the planet, this would be a somewhat countereffective exercise. As far as I was concerned, it was a harmless way to keep him occupied.

"Oh," said Renata. "How long do you think he'll be gone?" _Chelsea is impossible when Afton isn't around,_ she thought, remembering sniping and fights. "Chelsea gets so ...sad when he's away."

What Chelsea got was exactly like a frustrated teenager. Renata supposed that she actually missed her square-jawed partner, but she'd also overheared Adrienne speculating about the size of his equipment. I couldn't deny that they were an enthusiastic pair. It was impossible to avoid in a coven this size.

"I'm afraid the masters didn't say," I told her. "There were other matters at hand. Jane and Heidi had another fight today."

"Really?" Renata asked. Then she clamped both hands over her mouth, as if trying to push the word back in. I could suddenly see why Bella had brought her down here. Anything that would make that woman more assertive was a service to vampire society.

"It was near the end of my time in the library," I said, "not long after the two of you went to take over her duties with Caroly."

Renata exchanged a glance with Bella. "Maybe that's what that funny sound was," Bella offered.

I winced. If it had sounded anything like a petite psychopath trying to rip a larger vampire's arms, eyes and hair out, then yes, it probably had been.

Rolfe had been present at the altercation, and the images that had surfaced in his mind as he'd reported it to Aro were skewed toward Heidi's womanly charms, but it had been easy enough to tell what had happened. This was the third time in the past week that Jane had gone after Heidi. In her defense, it hadn't been entirely unprovoked, at least not this time.

Jane had been coming up from the lower levels. Rolfe remembered that she's already looked irritated with something. Then Heidi had made a crack about babies with colic. Jane had gone after her like a tornado with her hands and feet and jaws. A full forty seconds had passed before she'd brought her gift to bear. It had taken him and Randall together to pull them apart, and she'd given Rolfe a few moments doubled up in pain for his trouble.

The most disturbing part was what I hadn't seen in Rolfe's memory. He'd stood back and watched Jane and Heidi fight for almost full minute before realizing that he should intervene—and he'd done it by tackling Heidi. The idea that he could lay a finger on Jane hadn't even occurred to him.

Aro hadn't been happy when he'd heard about it. He'd wondered if there was something about Heidi in particular that was making Jane so irritated. He'd dismissed me, in fact, so that he could attend to the matter personally.

I could see why he wasn't ignoring the situation. If this kept up, Jane might do serious damage, and Heidi was too important to risk. She worked by putting her prey at ease, getting them to trust her. Her gift was subtle, though. She couldn't make people do things that they were dead set against. And the fact was that a fisherman with a scar on her face or a missing limb would have a harder time bringing in supper than one who was beautiful, unmarked and whole.

"Has Jane always been sensitive about her age?" I asked. I knew Alec was, but what held for one twin did not always hold for the other.

Renata nodded tightly. "I'm not surprised you didn't know," she said. "No one's made fun of her in a long time."

That made sense. Jane's weakness was common knowledge, but people hardly ever thought about it because no one was stupid enough to provoke her. On one hand, I almost admired Heidi's spirit, but baiting someone like Jane was like throwing sticks at a tiger. People that foolhardy usually deserved what they got.

"Anyway, I'd better go," Renata said. "Sulpicia usually wants me this time of day."

Bella winced. Did she have to be like that? None of the women liked serving the wives, but it was part of how life worked here.

Renata left through the tunnel opening and Bella walked up to me and reached for my hand. She'd been making lots of excuses to touch me lately. She always watched me very carefully when she did it, as if she expected me to change my mind about it not bothering me. There was something almost like fear flickering behind her eyes like a deer moving between the trees. It was as though she were looking for something and wasn't sure she'd be happy when she found it.

"Do you understand it, Edward?" she asked. I'd been about to tell her my best guess about Heidi when she continued: "She didn't know how to fight. Why wouldn't she know how to fight?"

I supposed it made sense that she'd be more interested in Renata than in Jane and Heidi. She didn't like either of them. She probably didn't care about the underlying mystery of it all so long as they both got good and damaged.

"Some vampires rely on other gifts, Bella," I said. "You didn't learn how to build fires and make chimneys draw as a child, but you made it through seventeen winters without freezing to death."

Bella gave the low, snorting type of sound that I'd come to think of as her American laugh, a little cynical but grounded and real. "We didn't have much of what you'd call winter in Arizona."

"Really?" I asked. "I heard that it can go down to all of four degrees centigrade. Best be careful or else you might need to put on long sleeves."

"Don't mess with me, Chicago boy." But there was a strange smile on her face.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I was thinking about Renee," she said. "She was a teacher, I think I told you." I nodded at her sad smile. She shrugged. "Well I guess we know what I would've been when I grew up."

But she hadn't grown up. She never would. I could see it, though. Bella at forty, a therapist or social worker, probably in Olympia. For some reason, I didn't think she'd have gone back to Phoenix. No, Bella the girl had loved sprawling cities, but Bella the woman worked with rural ills. Cities would only stifle her. Cities would only wall her in.

"I'm being serious, though," she said. "Renata wouldn't be afraid all the time if she knew how to fight. Why wouldn't Aro know that?"

"I don't know," I said honestly. "Her gift being what it is, I certainly can't think of any circumstances under which the Volturi would need Renata to be able to fight the way the rest of us do. Perhaps Aro thinks that so long as she can still perform her duties, Renata's fears are her own business."

"He wasn't like that with our own business," she pointed out.

"The two of us drew his special attention."

"Lucky us," she said sullenly. I opened my mouth to correct her, but then thought better of it. She was right, after all. "So what weren't you telling me before?"

Damn me but she really could tell. "It's what I wasn't telling Renata," I said.

"Fair enough," she told me. "Is it Renee and Charlie?" she asked.

"No," I told her, feeling a rush down my spine at the relief that flashed across her face. "There's been ...an issue," I said lamely.

"An issue," she repeated. "Edward, if I have to pull your tongue out of your head to find out what's going—"

"In Washington," I blurted, and her eyes narrowed.

"Like in Congress?"

"No, our Washington," I told her. "Near Seattle. Bella, I think it's Victoria."

Her eyes went wide. I had so wanted to be able to say this delicately. I had wanted to come up with the perfect words, but there was no help for it.

There had been reports, disappearances and murders. Students, runaways, low-pay workers and probably more of Seattle's homeless than anyone had noticed. I hadn't seen them before today. This was the first time that Aro had called for me during the Pacific shift.

And then, like with the fight, there was what we _hadn't_ seen. Or rather, where we hadn't seen it.

"But you could have said this in front of Renata," she breathed.

"I know," I said. "But I couldn't have said the rest."

She looked back at me, and, God help me, I actually closed my eyes. I let my attention drift upward, through the building.

"Anyone listening?" she asked, and I could hear the hint of smugness in her voice.

"Do let me know how you learned to read my thoughts, Bella," I answered without opening my eyes. "Though Emmett would say it serves me right to be on the receiving end for once."

She gave a little snort.

"There isn't a problem near Forks. There's a problem everywhere else. The vampires there are acting up, killing more often than they should. I feels almost like a newborn army, except it doesn't look like their commander is keeping a tight enough rein on them."

She seemed to process this for a moment, but not a long one. I knew how fast her mind could work. She'd already internalized the part about Victoria and an army. By now, she was on to the rest. By now, she'd figured out what'd I'd figured out in the library, with Aro's damned hand on my shoulder the whole time.

"Jake and his friends?" she whispered.

I nodded.

Mysterious deaths throughout northwestern Washington, everywhere that _wasn't_ guarded by a pack of shape-changing werewolves. The damned dogs had finally made themselves useful.

"What do you think is going to happen?" she asked, her voice quiet. "To the people we care about?"

The dim light made her pale skin gleam like a pearl. "Probably nothing. Your father and friends are safe. My family is a whole continent away. The masters couldn't blame them for the disappearances if they tried."

She closed her eyes and breathed in and out. I saw her hand open and close as if she were remembering how to clasp something. It made me wish I could see inside her mind. Was it the handle of her father's door? The keys to her old truck?

"I've heard the wives talk about them. They made them sound like the boogeyman, like the sort of thing that—" she bit her lip "that people like Volterrans would have nightmares about."

"They are," I said. "They nearly ripped Nueva España open to the sky before the makers learned to keep a leash on them. It's a miracle the humans didn't figure out—" I stopped as her brow creased.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Newborn armies," I answered. If vampires had a boogeyman, that was it. That or immortal children.

"I mean werewolves." She said. I blinked, realizing where we'd gotten lost. Long ago, Athenodora and Didyme had met one of the Children of the Moon in Thrace. Caius had spent centuries hunting them to extinction, and I supposed that the wives still told the stories. It had probably been the one about the Black Forest, where there had been a small outbreak in the early fifteen-hundreds.

"Bella, the Children of the Moon aren't the same thing as the wolves from La Push."

She frowned. "Are you sure? I mean, I couldn't picture someone like Jake doing all those things, but I figured the story just got garbled into anti-werewolf propaganda."

I suddenly had a mental image of Jacob Black's face on a recruitment poster. _Vampire-Hunting Wolfpack Wants You!_ I managed to hold in the laugh. It was ridiculous, but that round-faced Quileute boy had always annoyed me, probably because of his unrequited little schoolboy crush on Bella. Come to think of it, it made sense that the most irritating of the young La Push residents would become capable of tearing me apart. It certainly matched the rest of the luck I'd had this year.

"I'm sure," I said. "The Children of the Moon tend to occur alone, and they think like beasts. From what I understand, the La Push wolves have always worked in packs and showed human intelligence." I could recall now that I'd heard Eli Uley's mind when he'd been in his wolf form. It had sounded the same.

She seemed to process this. Then something else moved down her body like a ripple, like she'd found a spider on her shoulder. "Aro knows!" she hissed in a loud whisper. One of her hands tapped the side of her head. "You—you told him when he sucks out your mind every day!" She moved toward me, and I could almost have sworn her hands were shaking. "He knows about the alliance, and he knows about—"

"Yes, Aro knows as much about the Quileutes as I do and he has since spring," I said as calmly as I could, "which means he knows that they haven't revealed our secret, and that they have a few secrets of their own." Technically, Carlisle and Esme hadn't broken the law by admitting to what the Quileutes had figured out on their own, but they'd walked very close to the line. "However, as far as I can tell, he hasn't shared any of this with Caius."

"Why not?" Bella asked suspiciously.

"Because Caius is not always a rational man," I said delicately. As far as I could tell, there were no other vampires within earshot, but that could change at any time.

I'd expected her to glower at me. I'd expected her to point out in her so very pointed way that I'd always told her not to say anything bad about the masters. But her eyes were wide with what I knew was fear. "What do you mean?" she asked.

There was what I ought to say, and then there was the truth. I ought to have said that Aro was kind and wise, so that she would come to think that being trapped into service wasn't so bad so long as one served a man of vision. Those things were even true, almost. But sheltering was only a temporary solution. She needed to know in case they didn't let her go once her strength was gone.

"Caius wasted years of his life hunting the Children of the Moon," I told her quietly. "Years of his life and far too many of the guard for Aro's peace of mind. It was his obsession; it still is. Aro doesn't want Caius to become distracted again. That's all."

"So, if Caius heard about Jake and the others, he'd think they were Children of the Moon?" Bella asked carefully. "But Aro would try to get him to see that they weren't?"

"Probably," I answered. That was actually a pretty good prediction. She was getting better at this. The great strategy in Volterra was keeping the masters happy, and the masters did not all think the same way.

"But if he couldn't, he would let Caius go after them?" she finished.

And that was a good prediction too. "Yes," I said simply, "but he would try to see that it did not come to that. If anything, Aro is intrigued."

Bella eyed me darkly. "What kind of intrigued?"

"He toyed with the idea of 'acquiring a sample,'" I said carefully. The idea of immortal or near-immortal creatures who could walk unnoticed in daylight and outrun the fastest newborn had pleased Aro, but he hadn't bothered to work through the complexities. "He's decided agaist it for now."

"For now?"

"Bella, Aro has a million ideas a day. He only acts on a few of them."

"But he might send someone to Forks just to go after Jake and Seth and everyone?"

"He might do a lot of things, Bella. He's more likely to send someone to the area to flush out those newborns."

"Edward, we can't let this happen," Bella was saying. "By now, Andrea and Ben will be at college—their school is in Seattle. And what if Paul or somebody goes after Caius's newborn-flushing team?" She shook her head and started to moved toward the entrance.

I knew it couldn't make any difference, but I took her by both arms and stopped her. _Sit back down_. I thought. She stared me in the eye, annoyed and more than that. She knew what I was going to say. She knew she wouldn't like it. She knew I would be right.

"There isn't anything we _can_ do, Bella," I said firmly. "I told you because I wanted you to hear it from me instead of Adrienne or Felix."

"I wouldn't do anything bad," Bella said. "Just send a letter or something. It wouldn't be like with my parents; Jake already knows."

"Bella, they'll never let you, and if you do it on your own, they might kill you."

"I'm surprised you're not more worried about this, Edward. Aren't you and the Quileutes friends?"

"We had an agreement Bella, that's all. We stumbled upon each other's secrets and agreed to keep out of each others' way. That doesn't make us friends." It wasn't the nicest thing to say, but there it was. There was a part of me, a small one, that was even tempted to wish that Aro would eliminate the Quileutes. They knew our secret. That made them a threat. But the rest of me knew that they were innocent people and the fact that they'd gotten a little leverage over my family and were willing to use it was understandable. But I wouldn't say that I _liked_ them. Carlisle did, but Carlisle liked everyone, even me. "It's not worth putting yourself at risk over. Besides," I said, remembering the sour stink of werewolf. "I'm fairly sure the dogs can take care of themselves when it comes to vampires."

"Don't call him that," she snapped.

"What?" I was a bit confused. I'd expected that hearing that the Quileutes were safe would make her feel better, not worse.

"'Dog,'" she repeated. "I never want to hear you call Jacob or any of his friends by that name. They're proud of what they are."

I started at that. I knew perfectly well what the young Quileutes called my family and me—in their minds _and_ out loud. It was childish, but I felt that I should be allowed to call them something back. Dogs were nicer than leeches, at least. Dogs had spines.

But what if Bella hadn't allowed Jacob to call me names either? The idea of a fierce, lonely Bella Swan scolding a Quileute boy for saying a word against me gave me an odd sense of warmth. Then I suddenly pictured Bella hitting that insufferable Sam Uley on the head with a rolled-up newspaper. I held in the smirk. It wouldn't do me any good just now.

"I can't just leave it like this," she was saying, "after all Jake has done for me—"

I blinked, letting go of her arms.

"—after all they've _all_ done for me. Couldn't we at least send them a warning? To stay out of the Volturi's way, maybe, away from weirdos in cloaks. Caius can hardly get mad at us for trying to make _less_ trouble for him." She shook her head and started to pace back and forth.

I reminded myself that I should care more that she was thinking about breaking her silence, putting us both at risk, but it didn't take. Her words knotted in my stomach like a long, wet cloth. Her words and the shadows of agonized gratitude that I could see behind her eyes. Those images, those strange, secondhand images of Bella with a young Quileute boy, were starting to come together. And I did not like the picture they painted.

"It wouldn't even have to be a letter," she said, pacing past me, fingers waving apologetically in the air. "No, Jake doesn't really do email... You know, maybe the old-fashioned way is better. You can burn a letter once you're done, but I heard somewhere that email stays out there forever. That's it, then. I'll just tell him to burn the letter. That should be safe enough." She stopped on her heel and looked at me. "Do you think we could ask Aro's permission for me to send a letter telling them that the Volturi are there to kill other vampires and that they need to stay out of the way—It should be me; Jake will do it if it comes from me." I felt like I'd been punched in the solar plexus, but she just kept talking. "Aro will say yes if you ask him right. What do you think, Edward?"

Her eyes were wide, still animated but less confused now. She looked like she was waiting for something.

"Edward, are you all right?"

I nodded dumbly, _All he's done for you?_ echoing mutely in my mind. I'd known that Bella had spent time with werewolves—and it was important not to think about how I knew—but I'd pictured motorcycles and cliff diving and stupid, risky, teenaged behavior with the Quileute boys as Bad Influences One through Eight. It wasn't as bad as getting a nice girl mixed up with the Volturi, but it was hardly the Four-H Club. Had it been worse than that?

Bella took her eyes off me and leaned back, staring at the nothing between her and the ceiling. She looked like she was sick. If it had still been possible, I would have thought she was ill. I'd seen that look on Esme's face the time that Jasper and Emmett had been three days late coming back from a hunt.

The pieces snapped together like magnetic blocks. I could see that boy, that round-faced boy, minus his baby fat and with the musculature of a young shapechanger. His innocent, shy interest in Bella wouldn't have stayed that way, not when he had a man's build and a wolf's arrogance.

_Wolf._ In my day, that word had had a double meaning.

"...even after they saved me from Laurant, we'd spend hours in his garage, just killing time." She'd been explaining, and I'd been lost in my own thoughts ...which were now joined by images of teenagers in garages, in the backs of cars. There was no helping it. "The way they band together, Edward. You should see it. It's beautiful."

She was describing a friendship, I told myself. Just a friendship. But if she'd kissed that boy, would she have told me? No. And there would have been a kiss, at his instigation if not at hers.

"How well did you know Jacob Black?" I asked.

I knew it had been a mistake the instant the words were out of me. Bella leaned back, looking me in the eye as if she hadn't seen me before. "What do you— Edward, are you jealous?"

"No," I answered immediately. The nerve of her to even ask. "But I want to know why you were spending so much time with Billy Black's son."

She put her hands on her hips. "So what if I was?" she asked.

"What if you were?" I asked, taking a step toward her. "What if you were spending time with a werewolf, a _young_ werewolf?" I demanded. I could hear the energy humming in my tone, and somewhere I knew that I was out of line, but I didn't care. I was angry. Here _I_ was, never presuming on my lady's virtue—the day I'd turned Marcell didn't count; I'd had a goddamned skull fracture—and some backwoods wolf boy had stolen a kiss? More than a kiss? "Do you have any _idea_ how unpredictable they are? You think you were bad, during your first days? Little Jacob could've pulled that house down around your ears before he even knew he was doing it."

"Jacob wouldn't hurt me," she said.

I held up one finger. "He's a teenaged boy." I held up another. "He's a _werewolf_. Destruction is in his nature."

"You didn't mind when it was you," she hissed back.

"I left when it was me," I answered. "_I_ gave enough of a damn about you to not want to see you hurt."

"No," she answered. "You didn't stick around long enough to see."

It was like being hit in the face with a whip. It stung. I kept moving. "Yes, I left, and I didn't put either of us through that just so you could throw yourself into the jaws of the nearest supernatural monster with a pulse."

There was something inside me, something I hadn't felt in ages. This wasn't frustration or sorrow or resignation sludging its way through my being. I was mad. I was truly, factually, boiling-over _angry_, and I didn't entirely understand why.

"You never could let me make my own decisions; it was my risk to take!"

"Only if you didn't care how people would feel if you died!"

"Maybe I—" Bella's mouth snapped shut, locking in the last word. "You're hardly one to talk about that!"

The words were like a slap. "If I was wrong to do it, then how could you have been right?"

"Because Jacob was my friend!" she said. "You left and it was like my whole life fell down a hole. I went through the motions. I went to school like a zombie. I blew off all my other friends, and Jacob was the only one who put up with my bullshit long enough for me to climb out. No, that's not right," she said. "I didn't climb out. He pulled me out, and I didn't know he was doing it until it was done."

"I'm sorry I left you like that," I said quietly

"This isn't about you," she snapped. "The way he lived his life made me remember why the world was worth dealing with. You have no idea what that's like."

"Yes I do," I shot back.

"Oh come on. How could you have any idea?"

I opened my mouth. _Because you did it for me._

It was there in the front of my mind, materialized out of nothing. And now that it was, I didn't know why it hadn't been there before.

I hadn't realized it before, but it was true. She'd done it for me. Once, long ago in Forks and again here in Volterra. I remembered the mid-twentieth century as one long, bright day. I'd been newly forgiven by Carlisle and Esme. I had a brother I adored, and a... But it hadn't been enough. The decades had passed and it had all slowly gone dark and pointless. And then I'd met her, and I'd been happy. I'd been so resplendently, selfishly happy that I'd been able to ignore the danger that she was in just by being near me. And then I'd left her.

Then I'd come to Volterra.

I didn't believe that Jacob had pulled Bella out of her state. No person could do that for another. Bella hadn't done it for me, not exactly. But she'd given me something to look up at through the ice. She'd given me something to climb toward, to work toward. Yes, my newborn was a responsibility, but she was one that I'd actually _wanted_.

"Well?" Bella demanded, hands on her hips, and I realized that I hadn't said a word.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Yeah? Do you know what you're sorry about or do you just figure you should say you're sorry?"

That was a fair assessment of what was going on, but that didn't mean that it didn't count. "Well, I—"

"Right." Bella turned on her heel and headed for the hatchway. I stifled a curse and followed her.

"Bella, I really am!" I called upward as her silhouette momentarily blocked the opening. I jumped, feeling the familiar roughness of the sides of the opening against my palms as I vaulted the rest of the way through.

"Edward," Bella said, rolling the hatch cover into place, "the bottom line is that Jacob and his friends did something very good for me, something that they didn't _have_ to do. And they did something good for you and Carlisle and everyone too, even if you don't feel too happy about it."

I nodded, trying to figure out where she was going with this.

"So I really think they deserve for you to at least try to help them. Right now, that means convincing Aro to let me tell them to stay out of Volturi business. Do you understand why I want that, Edward?"

"I think so," I said. "But that's not the point." The point was that she'd just cavalierly thrown her whole, marked, red-hooded life down the wolf's throat and that it was a miracle she'd made it out uneaten. "The point is—" I held up a hand. I could hear a set of quick, dark thoughts and a footsteps ahead of us, near the corner.

"What is it?" Bella asked, seeming to gauge that we weren't talking about her self-destructive taste in "friends" any more.

"Try not to look surprised," I murmured as quietly as possible.

Bella opened her mouth to ask me something, but there wasn't time to say. I took two steps toward her and gently pressed my mouth against hers just as our interloper walked into view. I cupped the near side of Bella's face to hide any expression she might be making, and the other vampire—Adrienne, I could tell now—saw only a gesture of tenderness, which was exactly what I had wanted her to see.

I pulled back and shot Adrienne a glare. "_Do_ you mind?"

Adrienne's thoughts quickly rearranged themselves in exactly the order I'd predicted. She hadn't caught the newborn having an uncouth screaming match in the hallways again; she'd stumbled across a mated pair attempting to have a private moment.

I could've hoped for a more benign witness, but she'd serve. Any blame for Bella being late to her shift to serve the wives would be deflected onto me, and it had the added bonus that Adrienne would surely gossip about us, which would discourage Byron and any other admirers.

Far from apologizing for breaking the etiquette, Adrienne gave a disdainful sniff and walked off. _Yellow-eyed fool prefers skinny sticks to women..._ Her thoughts toward Bella were even less complimentary.

My breathing had gotten quick, even though this ruse was simple. Perhaps months in Volterra had agitated my nerves.

"All right," I said as Adrienne's footsteps retreated. "I think she's gone. You were saying about your friends from La Push?"

"Wait, you're just going to—" Bella shook her head. "What about—" She breathed in and out, holding up both hands. "So that was about appearances," she said.

"Of course," I answered.

"Is anyone within earshot now?" she asked.

I checked. Adrienne was technically close enough to overhear what we were saying but too absorbed in her own thoughts to pay any attention. "Not for any practical purpose," I answered.

"Good," she said.

There was a sound between a crack and a crunch and I found myself blinking up at the ceiling, my cloak hissing against the floor as I slid across it on the flat of my back.

"Edward, you—" Bella was saying, her hands screwed into throbbing fists at her sides. "What the _hell_./i made you think—" Her fingers flared in the shadows.

"Bella," I said, levering myself up on my elbows, "we need to maintain the illusion that—"

"_Bull-fucking-shit!_" her voice echoed off the walls like a ricochet. "Nobody here gives a dead rat whether I'm your girlfriend, your vampire love slave or screwing the janitor!"

"There's no need to be—"

"It's like you're some alien who only knows how to communicate through being an asshole!"

I took a mental step back. No, that was too generous. I'd been shoved. The result was the same, though. I collected my thoughts and my dignity before speaking again. "You're offended that I kissed you without your permission," I said, "in which case I apologize."

"I am not offended that you kissed me without permission," she hissed. "Don't you try to dress this up as you breaking some Victorian prime directive."

I wasn't sure what I'd meant to say. All I knew was that my voice came out much smaller than I'd intended.

"Then what did I do?" I asked.

"What did you—?" Bella took two steps toward me and then stopped.

"You know what, Edward? I always thought it was stupid when girls wouldn't tell guys what they did. 'How's he going to know if you don't tell him?' I'd think." She looked at me with eyes like blazing embers. "Well _now_ I get it. _Now_ I understand. Thank you, Edward, for helping me learn why Mellissa Ginsberg from tenth grade _wasn't_ just being a bubble-headed supertramp. _Thank you_.

"I don't want to tell you because I don't want to admit out loud that you could possibly be that dumb or that selfish. I don't want to _think_ that you're that dumb. It seems like the whole universe would implode if _anyone_ were that dumb. I don't want to tell you because I don't want to think that I picked a moron."

"Bella," I said, pushing myself up on my elbows. "Could you do me a favor and _not_ run off before I understand what I—"

She was already gone, just a swish in the air where her cloak had been.

I didn't even stand up. There wasn't much point, I figured as I let my head hit the tiling. She'd just keep running. She was headed upstairs, where no humans were to be found at this time of day. At least we wouldn't have a replay of the day I'd tried to turn Gianna.

"Another fight?"

I hadn't heard him approach. I'd been focused on other things. I'd been focused on her.

Well I wasn't any kind of focused any more. I could practically feel my bones shaking. "No, Master Marcus," I said, feeling the throb in my voice. "I wouldn't call it a fight. I wouldn't call it a fight at all."

I got up, pretending that I didn't need to dust myself off. The expression in his face was the quiet kind of amused, his thoughts moving with the muted click of a knitting needles during the making of some complex weave. For once, I didn't goddamned care.

"She's—" I pushed my lips together.

"She's what?" asked Marcus.

"_Ungrateful_," I hissed. "I am trying _so_ hard," I said. "I am trying so hard to keep us both alive, and she undermines it for pride!"

Marcus raised an eyebrow but said nothing, seemingly waiting for the rest. Well I had more. I had a _lot_ more.

"I sacrificed _everything_ to keep her safe," I said fingers stabbing at the air. "I uprooted my family. I lost my home. I lost her love. I lost my own piece of mind."

"You lost your freedom."

I looked up at him. "Yes," I said, though I hadn't thought of it at first. I'd joined the Volturi to protect her. Yes, I'd lost my freedom. It had been my decision, but what choice had I really had?

"For her?" Marcus asked.

His thoughts were a cloud to me. He was still too difficult to discern, perhaps from his years of living with Aro.

I looked down the hall where she had gone and then back at my circumspect master. "Who else would we be talking about?" I asked, confused.

Marcus smiled at that, a small, intense expression. "Who indeed?" he asked.

I shook my head, as if trying to knock the dust from my hair. It didn't make sense. Why didn't his question make sense?

Marcus chuckled. "So this is what it takes to give you impetus. The men of Volterra were no threat, but this boy she loves—"

"She doesn't love him," I snapped.

He raised an eyebrow again. Marcus could see the connections between people, but his gift had a range, as mine did. He couldn't say for sure that my Bella didn't love Jacob because he had not seen the two of them together. But I could. A stupid, simple country boy, nowhere near her equal. Why would she love him? But I felt sicker inside the more I thought of it.

"You've been healing, young Edward, but you can't make her wait for you forever. Not even our kind can wait forever." If I'd been paying attention, I'd have noticed the sadness in his eyes, but I didn't understand. I still didn't understand.

_Freedom, hope, plans for a future,_ Marcus thought to me, _you lost them all in the same hour. It's a rare man who comes away from that unchanged, and you were never as rare as you thought you were._

The rest came to me from my own mind, from my own memories of Carlisle's years treating life and death.

_I've seen the play of love in humans as well, you know_, he thought. _It comes in waves, with them. Sometimes it can be interrupted. Sometimes it even looks as though it's gone. At those times, the is human usually feeling either some great sadness or not much of anything, as though their lives have turned to pitch. They have a word for it now,_ he prompted.

"I was depressed?" I asked.

_You tell me._

I remembered watching Aro in the library the first two times. I remembered what I'd thought about it. But I couldn't remember what I'd felt about it. Was it because I hadn't felt anything?

I thought of my first weeks in Volterra, feeling like I was watching the world through clear ice, feeling like I was a tiny, vulnerable creature, and that I had to keep hidden.

_You've been healing, Edward,_ Marcus observed. _I've been able to see that. But sometimes I wonder what you used as a crutch. What did you convince yourself to believe in order to manage one day and then the next?_ There was something else behind his thoughts, something I couldn't hear.

What did it matter what Marcus thought of all this? Bella and I were an amusement to him, a distraction from his meaningless existence. He'd felt that way ever sicne he'd seen the bond between the two of us on our first day in Volterra. I remembered, bitterly now, the warmth that had flared inside me when I'd realized what Marcus had been thinking about. I'd never been able to hear Bella's thoughts, but in Marcus's mind I'd seen the proof that she'd loved me as I had loved her.

I didn't often think about that day; my memories of it were strange, blurred in places, parts of them torn up like a bulldozer ripping into the earth, but I could see her clearly, hear her heart pounding like a captive bird as I held her close, see her skin shining like diamonds...

I shook my head. No, Bella had been human that day. She'd still had the flush of blood in her skin. My memory was playing tricks on me.

And then I realized that I'd been picturing a leering Jacob Black beside a marble-skinned woman with dark amber eyes.

I felt sick, sicker than the day I'd spoken to Carlisle. _Edward_, I heard him say in my memory, _that's very wrong_.

Marcus was still watching me. Whatever had turned him into a quiet creature, he had never changed back.

"May I ask you a question?" I said. If he said yes, I would owe him, and that could be dangerous. But if he could truly answer me, I would repay him, if not gladly, then at least with gratitude.

"Ask," he said.

"Do we become different people when we are turned?" I said. He eyed me carefully. "Is the Bella who walks beside me now the same person as the girl I brought before you? Or is she some new being, born of Bella's body and my venom?"

_Brother warned me that he might ask about this._ The thought was not meant for me, but I heard it. I could also tell that Aro had told him not to answer.

...but Marcus, unlike myself, was not Aro's slave.

"Is that what this has been about?" he asked carefully. "You think she is not the same woman to whom you found yourself bound?"

"I don't know," I told him.

_Not so_, he thought. _Aro is like this, saying "no" when he really means "I know but I am waiting for proof." Stubbornness._

Marcus wondered for a moment if he should answer. _But then I am stubborn myself. If Aro wants me to respect his wishes, then he must go to the trouble of sharing them with me. I suppose this answer is what Aro wants him to earn ...I suppose it does not matter._

"I cannot see people's inner selves, as my brother does," he told me. "If I had to explain my own gift, I would say that I see what moves in the space between." _Like the light that travels through the ether, making the planets visible to each other_, that was how he'd thought of it, years ago, when he'd still had the heart for poetry. "In truth, I cannot answer your question the way you have posed it to me."

I nodded, looking down at my hands. No way to tell, not for sure. I would have to live with it.

"But that is not the real problem, is it?" Marcus asked me

I looked up. "I don't know what you mean."

"Yes you do," he said. _When did you truly begin to doubt her identity?_

"When she died."

_No, Edward, it was after that._

When he didn't sound bored, he could almost sound kind. This, more than anything, was what confused me.

"This is a thought puzzle to you, isn't it?" asked Marcus. _This child is so like Aro. A pity that my brother cannot think of his "dear ones" as sons. This boy could have made him a fine one._ "You poke and prod at our existence to see how it works. But does it make you angry? Does it fill you with sorrow, as you are filled now?"

No... No it never had.

"I am not asking about your thoughts, Edward. I am asking when you began to feel doubt. And it was not when your Bella's heart ceased to beat. It was well after that."

How could it have been after that? When she'd become a vampire, that was when she'd lost her soul. _That_ was the problem. I went over those three days in my head. They'd been agony, waiting at Aro's side, wondering where she was and what the other vampires were doing to her.

Marcus was silent, watching the thoughts play out on my face.

And then I'd seen her in her cell and I'd...

...I'd held her in my arms and... ...and she'd felt perfect, I remembered. She'd felt the same. Even her scent had not seemed alien to me, even though in truth it was. My palm touched stone. When had I braced my weight against the wall?

The room should have been spinning.

The earth should have opened to swallow me up.

Marcus was right. It had been after that. I'd spent months learning to bend so that I would not break, but I was already broken. I'd broken before I'd been here four days.

"Innocence is like a living thing, young one," he said. "When it dies, it must be mourned. But do not wear ash so long that it runs into your eyes and blinds you."

I closed my eyes, tensing my fingers against the wall as I felt my body shake. The pieces were all falling into place. Bella was good, and killing humans was bad. I'd been unable to process a Bella who could kill an innocent human. But it had happened.

Could I have been that small? Could I have fallen apart just because the world was too _complicated_?

There was more; there were more things that could have kept my thoughts on that path. I'd known that Aro might let Bella go once her year was up. But deep down I must have realized that I never could have done it again, given my Bella away, not even for her own good. But I also couldn't pass up the chance to get her away from here or find her a better protector.

So she couldn't be Bella.

I shook my head. It made no sense. It made _no sense_ for my mind to be that malleable. The idea that I could warp my own thoughts, tie them into knots like a hagfish and not even know I was doing it...

But I'd seen too many people's thoughts, human and vampire. It wasn't impossible. And it explained too much.

My eyes must have slid shut at some point. "I've ruined things, haven't I," I said into the air.

_You are a fool, but not for the reasons my brother thinks, nor any of the reasons you think._ "The things I see," said Marcus, "are never only about one person."

I looked up, confused.

Marcus gave a small, heavy shake of his head, as if he were amazed at my slowness.

"_She_ still loves _you_," he spelled out.

I was almost sure he wasn't lying. But how could he not be?

"She might even be fool enough to take you back," he said, turning back the way he'd come. "It is the nature of our kind to choose one thing and keep to it."

"Bella was not our kind when she loved me," I said.

"Well-suited for it, though, wasn't she?" he said without looking back.

_That is what preserved her mind, no matter what Caius thinks,_ Marcus mused as he walked away. _For her, it was not so great of a change._

My head was throbbing as if my heart could still pound. So there it was. Carlisle had told me, but I hadn't been ready to hear it. Now Marcus. Even if they were both wrong and the vampire Bella really was a new person, I'd loved her too, as she was. I had for months. I'd even come close to realizing it before now.

I hadn't completely accepted the idea. Acknowledging that I'd been in the dark didn't I could immediately see. I still had doubts, and maybe I always would, but that didn't mean I couldn't act. I breathed in and out, steeling myself. I made a decision.

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Psych majors? Have at it.

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	33. Ch 32 Rational

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

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"You don't believe me, do you?" –Edward, _New Moon_

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I wanted her back. I wanted her as she was. If I got my old Bella in the bargain, so much the better, but she was no longer the reason behind my actions. If my human Bella was dead, then she was dead. I had mourned her, as Master Marcus had put it, and I was free to start over. If the human and vampire Bellas were the same, then I had made us both wait long enough. I knew what I wanted. I had made my decision.

But it proved easier to decide than to do.

"She doesn't want to talk to you, Edward," Renata said to me, blocking the doorway to the stairwell. It was just my luck that Bella would help that girl grow a spine and then I'd be the first person she'd test it on.

"Well then will you tell her that I want to talk to her?" I asked.

Renata shrugged. I heard footsteps on the upper walkway, out of sight. "Bella!" I called up.

"I said she doesn't want to talk to you," said Renata. "Now go away. You know you're not allowed in the tower."

There was no help for it. I turned and went back the way I'd come. Bellowing up at her like some drunken Romeo wouldn't help, and it would probably disturb Sulpicia. Aro would want me soon, and he would read our entire conversation in my thoughts, including the parts about Jacob Black and his friends. I didn't need any memories of me disrespecting his wife mixed in with that.

By now, I knew the compound well. I slipped down the stairs toward the lower levels easily. As always, I kept half an ear out on the thoughts of the vampires in the floors above and below me. After so long, it had become no more annoying than the babble of any of the high school cafeterias I'd been compelled to occupy over the years. Male and female voices playing for power, lust, position and alliegiance within their social groups. If there was one thing that I did not mind about being Volturi, it was that as long as I was here I would not be compelled to reenroll in high school.

At the corner, I noticed Adrienne. She thought Bella and I had had a lover's spat. She'd picked out a white blouse that she thought set off her skin and had placed her hands just so against the doorframe, fixing her face into an affected caricature of sympathy just in case I looked her way.

Months of dodging that putrid harpy made the idea of kicking her down the stairs far too appealing, but my deeply ingrained manners insisted that I greet her with at least a polite nod. In the end, my trapezius muscles spasmed slightly as I passed her by.

_What was that?_ Adrienne wondered confusion as I walked away. _Did she hit him in the neck?_ Those thoughts gave way to speculation about how my trousers set off my physique as I walked away. I resolved to wear my Volturi cloak inside the compound thereafter.

Aro did not call me, so I was waiting outside the entrance to the library during shift change.

"Bella," I said as she brushed past me towards the sat down in her place beside Randall. I followed her. No one stopped me. By now, I was known as one of Aro's preferred library escorts. They probably assumed that he would show up at any moment. "Bella, I have some things to say," I told her as she adjusted her skirt and pulled the copy of her first newspaper in front of her.

"Bella, we must speak privately," I said. "Let's step away for a moment." I saw her eyebrow twitch, but otherwise, she completely ignored me.

_The hell does he want?_

_Stupid jerk knows better than to come in here and start yapping._

_Sounds far more interesting than the _Cinncinnati Herald_. Do tell, you sexy man._

As always, hers were the only thoughts that I couldn't hear. She made them clear to me, though, flipping the page of the _Amish Times_ so that it came within a hair of my face.

I forced my fists to unclench. Oh she was good. She'd learned how to manipulate the situation. I had a million things to say, and I couldn't breathe a one of them in the middle of the evening shift.

"Bella, I'm sorry," I murmured. She kept her eyes on the page, expression just a little haughty. "We _do_ need to discuss this."

_Sweet-talk your way back into your girl's knickers on your own time,_ thought Randall. I had to give him credit. He wasn't planning on saying it that way out loud, but he was breathing in to tell me to leave. In a way, this fight was a good thing. Randall hadn't thought of me as a person with normal problems since I'd gotten here. A male vampire getting over a lover's quarrel with his mate, that was something he could understand. It wasn't a full turnaround, but it was a start.

I stood up before he could speak. Just for good measure, I made eye contact, keeping an apologetic look on my face.

Randall's eyebrows shot up. I hadn't thought he'd be that surprised, but I must have been more abrasive than I'd thought these first few months. I hadn't changed anything today. This was only the first layer of groundwork, but I would win him over. I had time.

I moved through the hallways without any real purpose. Unlike most of the Volturi, I did not have a regular schedule. My duties were to come when Aro called me and to go where Caius sent me. Marcus had been relatively undemanding. Even so, it was rare that I had a moment to myself. When I did, I usually spent it with Bella, studying or passing the time. This was probably the first hour that I'd spent entirely at loose ends.

I considered going downstairs to look for Caroly. I'd seen Marcell once or twice since he'd been turned, but I'd only viewed Caroly through the minds of others. Aro had said that he didn't want me influencing my newborns—he'd have preferred it if I hadn't even considered them mine—but he hadn't expressly forbidden me to see them.

It occurred to me, somewhat belatedly, that I could listen to Caroly's thoughts and try to determine if they were the same as those I'd seen before, the day she'd been turned, that flash of sincerity and regret. I found that I only token interest in doing so. Whatever doubts I might still have, they weren't so keen that the need to assuage them could drive me.

I would go see, Caroly, then, but largely because I had nothing better to do until I figured out how to get Bella to stand still for three minutes.

The way was simple, and I'd traced it in Renata's mind many times. Something nagged at the edges of my awareness, like a chill or tightness in the air. By the time I reached the first level below ground, I realized what it was: The thoughts around me had grown sharper. People were thinking less about the past and future. They were in the moment.

A fight was brewing.

That itself was not so rare an occurrence. Within reason, members of the guard were encouraged to practice fighting, and many of the walls had been reinforced and soundproofed for that purpose—Rolfe and Felix tended to draw quite the enthusiastic crowd when they got going—but there was something else to this, a bite, an electric undercurrent. Something was wrong.

Sure enough, by the time my hand touched the door to the next stairwell, there was a shriek and the heavy sound of clashing limbs. Someone yelled, "Sister!" and I heard footsteps running toward the incident.

Before Zhengzhou, I would have headed the other way and found some of my own business to mind. My status as the outsider meant that I could easily become the target of any aggression in the room. This time, though... I breathed in and out. I should care. The Volturi were my coven now. If it had been Jasper and Rosalie, I would have cared. So I was going to act like I cared.

I hurried down the hall, trying not to make too much noise—I still had that much concern for my own skin.

There was a heavy crack that I recognized as the sound of a vampire hitting stone, followed by choked screaming. I ducked my head around a corner to find Heidi curled up in the fetal position, feet pattering on the floor as her hands folded into claws in front of her chest. Alec was standing between her and a clearly livid Jane, while Adrienne had flattened herself against a decorative column in the far wall, praying to become invisible. Rolfe, I noticed, was standing in front of her, trying not to think about the last time he'd tried to get between Jane and Heidi.

"Sister, she did not mean it, I'm sure of it!" Alec said with a hint of panic, his voice even higher than usual.

"Stay out of this, Alec!" hissed Jane. Alec was more agitated than I'd ever seen him, limbs half-bent in a combat crouch, blinking back the hair that had fallen into his eyes. Jane was practically twitching. Tension seemed to ripple down from her shoulders to her talonlike fingers. Venom was dripping grotesquely from her teeth to the floor of her open mouth and I doubt she knew it.

Heidi's feet were pushing against the floor as she writhed, inching away from Jane as she pressed one hand to the side of her face, which was screwed up like a newborn child's. Shit. Jane had probably done some damage this time.

"Don't try to get away from me. I am going to rip your eyes out you giant hag—"

"Jane!" Alec actually looked alarmed.

No one had noticed me yet. I could still leave. I breathed in and out. If I sounded the least agitated, this wouldn't work. I thought back to the time that Esme and someone else had tried to make brownies. Before they'd left the kitchen reeking of burnt sugar, I'd watched them spread dollops of thick brown batter into a pan. Heavy. Slow. Sweet.

"Rolfe?" I called out, as calmly as I could manage. I'd overdone it. I sounded as if I'd been sedated, but that hardly mattered. "Rolfe would you come over here? I need your help with something."

Everyone but Heidi turned and stared at me. I fought the urge to look at Jane. Her mind was like a swarm of crows. The sound of a gunshot had tossed them into the air for now, but they'd settle down again, only not necessarily on the same carcass.

"I need your help with something, Rolfe," I repeated. "Would you come with me, please?" I paused. "Bring Adrienne, too."

_Has he lost his fucking mind?_ Rolfe wondered. But he noticed that Heidi's screams had given way to desperate panting.

"All right, then," he said. "Sure." He groped behind him and took Adrienne by the hand. He walked as if the floor were covered in broken glass, moving throught the exact middle of the hallway, so that the hem of his cloak brushed against Alec's legs, temporarily blocking Jane's view of her prey.

As they moved, I watched Heidi realize that Jane had been distracted. Not a second had passed before she was back on her feet and running away like a scalded cat. Jane turned but too late, there was nothing left of Heidi but the swinging of the stairwell door. I watched a snarl build in her throat as she moved to follow.

"There you are, Jane," I said, praying that the tremor would stay out of my voice. "Master Caius said that he wanted you upstairs," I told her. "I believe he's talking to Corin in the library." The last time I'd lied to Jane about her duties, my punishment had been public torture. Caius might let this one slide—if word of the fight got to him before Jane did, if he could pretend that I had indeed been following orders.

"Duty first, sister," Alec said tensely. "We can deal with Heidi later." He looked at me. Whatever else Alec was, he was frightened. Jane was his other self, and he saw her recent instability like a man who'd woken up and found half his body rotted away. Something about that moved me.

_Thank you_, he thought. I nodded, just barely.

I didn't move an inch as Alec led Jane away throught the far door.

It closed behind them and Adrienne collapsed against Rolfe's chest, shoulders hitching as she wept without tears. Rolfe gaped for a moment, then cautiously laid one of his meaty hands against the back of her head, patting awkwardly.

"What happened?" I murmured, amazed. Jane had _never_ lost control like this, _never_. "What did Heidi do?"

"Nothing!" Adrienne wailed into Rolfe's neck.

"It can't have been nothing," I said, trying to make sense of the mirror shards that made up Rolfe's memories of the event. Adrienne's thoughts were no use.

"Nothing _bad_," Rolfe amended, as he mentally called me a fucking nitpicker.

"Heidi and I were talking about the gaps in the cleaning roster, and Heidi said it was 'our little problem,'" supplied Adrienne. She leaned back from Rolfe, pressing the back of her hand uselessly against her eyes and nose.

"Jane thought it was a slur on her size and recent behavior," I finished. Adrienne nodded.

"Wait, can't you tell?" asked Rolfe, pointing to his right temple, "You know..."

I shook my head. "Only what people are thinking right then. It's not like what the master does." I closed my eyes and listened, "Right now, Jane is considering punching Alec in the jaw."

Adrienne made a little noise, and I realized what it was that I had said. The twins had always been a matched set, the perfect pair. I didn't like being in the same room with either of them, let alone both at once, but Adrienne recalled the two of them finishing each other's sentences, mirroring each other's movements without looking. The idea that one of them would harm the other was, to Adrienne, impossible.

"I thought she'd go for me next!" Adrienne wailed. It was unnerving to see her vulnerabe. I'd never seen her show this much sincere emotion before. "She's a witch!"

"Careful!" said Rolfe.

"She is!" she went on. "I wouldn't say it for nothing, Rolfe, you know I wouldn't, but what else do you call that?" she pointed one shaking finger the way Jane and Alec had gone. "First Felix, then Heidi twice! And she got her in the face! She'll have a scar. How are we going to eat if Heidi can't work?"

Vampire scars were not necessarily visible to human eyes, but those were all real problems. Felix was the guard's chief muscle, and Heidi was its chief procurer. Jane should have known better than to risk harming either of them.

"Well we could always eat pigs like Edward here," Rolfe joked, giving me a heavy slap beween the shoulder blades. "Little Bella tells me they're not that bad."

Adrienne covered her face in both hands and cried harder. Rolfe looked at me. _I said the wrong thing, didn't I?_ I gave him a helpless look. Recent events had shown that I wasn't much better with women than he was. At least she hadn't slugged him yet.

"Has Jane ever acted like this before?" I asked out loud.

Rolfe shook his head. "No. She was always kind of—" _scary bitch pixie keep out of her way_ "—but she never..." he trailed off, remembering. His thoughts matched what I'd seen for myself: Jane liked her work, but she did what she was ordered to do. In the extremely rare event that someone very new or very foolish deliberately provoked her, she kept her responses swift and focused. Jane had never lost her calm in this way until around the time that Rolfe and I had returned from China. Even her previous attack on Heidi had been provoked by a real insult, not an imagined one.

Vampires didn't change. We weren't _supposed_ to change. That was probably why Adrienne was so frightened. The thought of a deranged vampire who could taser people with her mind and would do so completely at random wasn't exactly soothing to me either.

"Master Caius has to send her away," Adrienne muttered. "She can't stay here if she's going to keep doing this."

"I'm sure that Master Caius will remind her of her station," I said with more certainty than I felt. "And Master Aro knows more about our kind than anyone. He will know what to do."

"If Jane goes, Alec will go with her," said Rolfe.

"Neither of them are going anywhere," I answered. "They're too precious to the masters."

"Then I will go," said Adrienne. "Guard or no guard, I won't stay here for that little goblin to snap at my heels."

"Adrienne," Rolfe said quickly, "there's no need to— I mean I don't—"

"Unless someone gives me a reason to say," Adrienne said with false caution, looking at me sideways as she quite deliberately let one of her dark curls fall across her elegant features.

Rolfe looked from Adrienne to me and back, eyes narrowing. It was just my luck that the only vampire here who was close to friendly with me was figuring out that the girl he had a crush on was far friendlier than I'd like.

Back in high school after all. _Damn it_.

"I'm sure you have many reasons to stay, Adrienne," I said as stiffly as I could muster. "Your duty first of all."

Her face crumpled. "You really are a fool," she breathed, turning on her heel and hurrying away, careful that her cloak would flare behind her just so.

I opened my eyes to find Rolfe staring at me speculatively.

"Are you and her—"

"No," I insisted.

"Because I thought you and Bella were—"

"We are."

"Because I kind of thought that you knew I—"

"I do," I told him, putting my hand on his arm. "Bella's just a little mad at me right now is all," I explained.

_Oh, just a little?_ he thought archly. But then he shook his head. "If that's your biggest problem," he said, looking at the scuff marks that Heidi had left on the floor. He did not finish speaking.

Jane's irrationality could not preoccupy me for long. Instead of going to see Caroly, I paced back in forth in the hallway, watching Caius's thoughts. I would have gone to him if he'd sent for me, but he did not. The rest of the guard was avoiding this place, at least for now, and that gave me room to think.

I devised a new strategy: Because Bella had made it clear that I wasn't going to get away with a straight apology, I would bring her a present. Anthropologically speaking, gifts were usually a sign of power, giver over recipient, but I'd always felt that these sorts of offerings fell more along the lines of sacrifices made to placate angry spirits. Most men bought flowers or jewelry when they wanted to get back into a lady's good graces. Emmett had corralled Rosalie a wild boar once. I remembered a ball player who'd been accused of assaulting a mistress; his wife had sat beside him at the trial wearing an eight-karat purple diamond. Things wouldn't be so simple for me. Bella's time working for Sulpicia had made her sick of flowers, all my heirloom jewelry was in a lockbox in Emmett's closet, she didn't have a favorite food, and I hadn't so much as breathed at a piano in a year. But I could still give her the perfect present. After all, she'd said she wanted one.

Damn, but I wished this would only cost me two months' salary...

When I arrived in the audience chamber, Aro was with Demetri and Felix. I could see images of a recent return to Budapest in Demetri's thoughts, but those dissipated as I approached. I could see myself in Demetri's mind, better than a mirror. Gray cloak, serious expression. The image of the Volturi guard. Perfect.

I considered going down on one knee, but I figured that would probably be pushing things.

"Young Edward," said Aro.

"Master, I wish to ask a favor."

Aro's eyebrow shot up. Even Demetri looked intrigued. _That's not like him_, came his bell-clear hunter's thoughts.

"More of a suggestion, really," I modified, but I couldn't erase the impact of the word "favor." I didn't want to. I'd chosen it quite deliberately.

Aro could have read the whole plan in my mind, of course, but that would have been too easy. This way his first impression of the plan would be the version I'd prepared for him. And then there was the fact that I'd put myself in his power by asking him for something in front of witnesses, and he knew it.

"As you know, I lived in Washington for many years, not far from the site of the recent irregularities. I believe there is a problem that may be avoided with careful planning."

Aro stretched forth his hand, as if to put his weight on my shoulder. I complied. "I must say I am surprised to hear you come forward, young Edward," he said as his gift made contact with my memories.

_She was right you know,_ Aro thought wryly.

_Which time, Master Aro?_ I asked.

_I am fairly confident it was all of them_, he answered.

_Well, Master? Do we have your permission?_

Aro's thoughts were calculating, as always. _You'll want to say it out loud,_ I suggested. _Demetri and Felix will know you've granted my request. They have seen your generosity, and they will punish any ingratitude on my part._ He saw the words I was suggesting in my mind. I saw his eyes narrow, just a hair. If anything, he was displeased that I hadn't shown this kind of subtlety before. Well I was all in now.

_There is something that I want from you in return, young Edward._

_Yes, sir,_ I answered.

His thoughts filled with Jane, lingering over my images of the fight with Heidi and her other recent outbursts. It had disrupted her duties. I could see in his thoughts that it had affected the rest of the coven more than I had known. People spoke in whispers whenever she was near, always looking over their shoulders. Twice, Caius had planned to send for her and then changed his mind. Aro wondered what he would do when a mission arose and he wished to send her into the field. If I hadn't known better, I would almost have thought that Aro was concerned.

_Not almost, young Edward. Jane is my dear follower, and she has done a great deal of good for all our kind. I am concerned for her welfare and for that of the coven_. He had already run through a hundred possible consequences of continued fights, and they were largely worse than I had anticipated. Jane would have to be exiled or executed, which would have any number of effects on Alec. To the vampire public, Jane was Aro's most feared agent; there would have to be a cover story for why she no longer appeared to defend the peace and punish the careless. If Jane were not quieted or eliminated, then there would be defections, especially among the proud and talented. Demetri, Aro suspected, probably Adrienne and Chelsea as well. Would the relative security that we'd known continue if the Volturi lost half their strength? Would there be consequences for the human population if it did not?

_Yes, sir_, I promised.

_Can you do as I have asked?_

_I will listen to her thoughts, Master,_ I said. _I will watch her when you cannot, and I will try to predict any conflicts._ Something strange moved in Aro's mind when I thought the word "predict," but it passed quickly.

Aro's mind left no room for ambiguity. He wanted more than just a recording of Jane's thoughts in real time. He wanted a vampire with intellect sufficient to the task. He'd witnessed me finding patterns in the library. He'd seen my memories of helping Carlisle at his work, knew every conversation we'd had about the nature of the vampire mind. He wanted a detective.

"You have my permission," he said out loud, "to contact your former allies in Washington. Warn them that I will be sending men soon. Tell them to stay out of our way, so that we may avoid confronting the innocent along with the guilty."

"Thank you, Master," I said. And then I left. Behind me, Demetri believed what I had wanted to believe: that my "allies" were vampires, nomads who regularly passed through Cullen territory perhaps. No hint of wolves would reach Caius's ears.

I didn't like owing Aro favors. I didn't like having to acknowledge that he'd been kind when he could have been cruel. I didn't like having a task to perform for him when I would so much rather spend my energy on my own problems.

As I walked away, I remembered something that had passed through my thoughts during my first days in Volterra: Aro had kept Bella around because he thought that she was the only way to keep me motivated.

_Innocent lives..._ he thought, and a chill ran down my spine as he thought it. _This could be made to work._

I spent more time thinking about those early days. Many of my memories were hard to visualize, and I saw myself as if I'd been watching from the outside. Becoming trapped here, being forced to turn Bella, not being allowed to remain with her through her change—I couldn't believe Aro had been angry enough with me to not let me see her once—and I kept trying to remember what I'd thought and how I'd felt. Had there been longing? Had there been guilt? Had I been sure of her identity then?

It was of little use to me. There was something blank about those days. But it did pass the time until the goddamned door to the art gallery opened.

"I know you're in here," I called.

Renata appeared in the doorway, blocking my view. Over her shoulder, I could see the door at the end of the gallery swing back and forth where someone had passed through it. Renata watched me, arms awkwardly folded, as if she didn't know how to look aggressive but was giving it a fair shake.

"Will you tell her it's about the Washington situation?" I asked.

"She said you'd say that," said Renata, picking up the brush that she had been using to clean one of Caius's paintings. Titian maybe. If being a vampire didn't work out for her, she had a bright future in art restoration.

Renata shrugged, convincingly this time.

"Look, we've got to take care of that problem soon," I said, "before Aro changes his mind." I couldn't help angling my words toward the far hallway. No way she didn't hear that. If I was going to do my groveling in front of a thousand-year-old despot with designs on my psyche rather than at the feet of the lady in question, then dammit but she was going to find out about it.

The more practical problem was that the letter had to come from her but everyone had to think that it came from me. Bella hadn't been one of our kind back in Forks, so there was no legal way for her to have had contact with any vampiric Cullen allies. I couldn't write the letter myself, I couldn't shout across the gallery that she needed to pick up a pen, and things might go very badly for little Jacob Black and his friends if we waited too long.

"That's not important," Renata snapped. Or at least she came closer to snapping than she ever had in her life. "Now ...get lost!" she shouted cautiously, though the effect was marred by the delighted smile. No one had ever told her how much fun it was to yell at people.

I didn't want to go back downstairs, but I could hear Renata planning on making her first-ever scene. I didn't know what Bella had done to the poor girl, but she almost seemed to be looking forward to it. Still, I had other business to attend to until another opportunity arose. Unpleasant business, but I had promised. I did not need this. I did not need Bella avoiding me, I did not need a pack of slobbering were-teens to take care of, I did not need a rampaging death pixie who had suddenly become my specific problem, and I did not need Renata cutting her teeth on the remaining scraps of my patience.

On the way downstairs, I found that my concerns about being overheard had been justified. Adrienne was waiting for me again—pretending not to be, of course.

I made the mistake of looking her way without a scowl, and she smiled hopefully, thoughts full of bonding over the terrible ordeal that we'd both been through.

"Edward, I cannot thank you enough your earlier gallantry," she breathed at me. "If there's _any_ way I can repay—"

"Give it up. It's _never_ going to happen," I said as I shoved past her.

She had the good grace to look insulted. I turned around.

"You know, you should give Rolfe another look," I said. "Those rumors about Afton? Not a thing on Rolfe."

Her face turned speculative. _Really?_

No way in hell, but I was in no mood to help her out on that one.

If I hadn't been so distracted, I would have waited until she was in motion, or in a crowd. I would have watched her thoughts from outside the room, from another floor. When cornering a stubborn, dangerous creature, it is best to either give it an escape route or a dozen other targets, but I was too eager to discharge my obligation to Aro.

Marcell's place of confinement was slightly more hospitable than the one that had held Bella. Bars sunk deep into the steel separated him from the hallway. I noted that he'd been moved here after his mishap the day I'd returned from China. I wondered if that was because he was maturing or because the masters did not trust Jane with him as they had before. Probably the former. Marcell and Caroly were entirely expendable in Aro's eyes.

Jane turned her glassy red eyes toward me as I approached, "What are you doing here?" she snapped.

"I'm waiting for Bella," I lied in as neutral a tone as I could. Jane shook her head quickly, as if trying to knock a spider out of her hair. It was actually an excellent excuse for me to be here, and Jane seemed to believe me. Due to the crowded conditions and strict work schedules, vampires could linger in almost any part of the compound for their partners. It was considered polite to pretend they weren't there, and I was hoping years of conditioning would help her to ignore me while I hovered. Jane wasn't looking at me at least. So far so good.

My mental contortions must have been working. I had not spent much time around Jane recently, but I realized that her mind wasn't nearly as stunted or disturbing as I'd used to think. Her thoughts were bitter but animated, much closer to what I thought of as normal. Her face and movements were less dull—she was practically telegraphing "LEAVE ME ALONE [STOP]" with every breath and gesture, but that was still less unnerving than her usual focused blandness. She was still an executioner's mask, but all the threads hanging loose made her seem less menacing.

"Bella doesn't want to see you," rasped a voice from inside the cell.

"No one was talking to you!" bellowed Jane, slamming her hand against the bars. "What do you know? Shut up!"

"Jane!" I called out. She rounded on me and I instantly stepped back, "Jane," I said, in a gentle tone this time, like when Emmett and I had been watching a zoo show about trying to get a lion cub to eat. "Jane he didn't do anything wrong."

"You don't have to be here with him all day," she snapped. "You don't have him constantly at you. You don't do anything! Everyone hates you, even the master!"

_What in God's name..._ I blinked. That might be it. Jane had started lashing out at other members of the coven shortly after she'd been assigned newborn duty. Something about Marcell might be setting her off. She was as irrational as if she'd been at her wit's end for weeks.

I looked through the bars. Marcell didn't _look_ that infuriating. But, as Jane had said, I wasn't the one who had charge of him. Perhaps the matter merited investigation.

"I can watch him now if you want," I said. I had planned to spend at least an hour watching Jane, but this was getting out of hand too quickly.

"Do you think I can't do my work?" she snarled.

"I do," I said, "but maybe you deserve a break."

"Don't patronize me, you pus-eyed worm."

"Fine," I said, spreading my hands at mid-level. I could speak with my body language too. Speaking with my mouth only made her angry. I pulled out every trick I knew and some I'd copied off Rolfe: I relaxed my posture. I strayed nearer the edge of the hallway, well away from the exit.

I turned my attention to Marcell. He was on the far end of his holding cell, never looking directly at Jane but listening with all his attention. If he remembered the wound I'd given him, he wasn't thinking of it now. I was now nearly certain that her attack on him the previous week had not been merited. She was clearly not in complete control of herself.

From what I'd seen, all of Jane's thoughts were genuine. They rose up out of her boiling kettle of a mind the same way everyone else's did. I wondered what Jasper would have made of it.

I watched the newborn, waiting for him to look at me. He didn't. He was perfectly still, keeping his face to the wall. He'd learned that much, at least. Jane's thoughts wandered away from Marcell and me and back to Heidi. Jane was still itching to get back at Heidi for the insult she'd paid her. I noted disturbedly that many of the fantasies were taking rather specific shape. Pulling her hair out, breaking her teeth... I couldn't tell if Jane was actually planning to do it yet, but it wasn't a good sign. Members of the guard attacking each other in our own compound? Aro had been right; Adrienne wasn't the only one who'd want to quit, to say nothing of what it would do to the Volturi's reputation if word got out.

Marcell had mentioned Bella to me. Had Bella and Renata talked about me while they were watching over him? His thoughts were full of Jane, but there were flashes of other faces in gray cloaks. He was waiting for them to show up. He spent most of his days hoping to see their faces come through the entranceway, if only because it meant Jane was leaving. Other than that, though, his thoughts were typical of what I'd expect from a newborn, flickering from hunger to fear to anger and back. His desire for the comfort that Bella and Renata provided was one more animal instinct among the others, but it was there.

I couldn't blame him for thinking about Jane. She was as impossible to ignore as a machine gun, radiating agitation, menacing just by being herself. Only now, she was a machine gun with a faulty trigger, firing off without warning.

So far, the trick seemed to be just not to irritate her, but in a building full of dozens of vampires, that would be impossible. Marcell and I seemed to be doing all right as the time dragged on, but we were both standing completely still, in nonthreatening postures, making no noise.

Jane was hardly static, thoughts jumping to Heidi and to Alec, even to me a time or two, but she didn't seem to be connecting the me from the hallway to the me standing behind her by the pillar. In her mind I seemed tall and imposing. If I'd addressed her directly, I probably would have been the one doubled up on the floor instead of Heidi.

There were footsteps in the stairwell behind us. "You're late," Jane seethed as the door slid open and Renata and Bella walked toward us.

_But we weren't supposed to be here until—_ Renata closed her mouth before she could say it out loud. She knew that Jane didn't need to get her facts straight. She was Jane.

Bella took one look at me and turned on her heel to leave. I registered a faint whining sound from Marcell as she moved away. "Bella, I need to talk to you," I called out.

"Shut up!" snarled Jane, and I heard the clang of her hand on the bars again.

Strictly speaking, I should have stayed with Jane, but I would have many opportunities to be around her, and Bella had been dodging me. Aro might chide me for it, but I was pretty sure Marcus would tell him to leave me alone.

Bella took the stairs four at a time, but I was faster. I got to the stairwell door first and put my hand on it before she did. What I was doing was extremely rude, I knew. My human mother was probably turning over in her grave, but I _had_ tried being polite first.

"Edward, let me go," Bella said, looking right past me at the door.

"You're not even going to look at me?" I asked. She made eye contact. "We need to talk," I said.

"Did you get Aro's permission?" she asked.

"We'll get to that."

"Did you get Aro's permission?" she repeated.

"Bella, what I want to say is—" I lost my last word as Marcell let out a loud scream, followed quickly by Renata.

"Shit," Bella swore, darting past me back down the stairs. I had to admit similar sentiment, but I was more concerned with what Bella might do to Jane. The little demon's reputation wasn't so damaged that the masters would side with Bella over her.

I trained my hearing on the hallway outside Marcell's chamber.

"If you think he's so wonderful—here!" followed by a scrape of metal.

And Renata was shrieking in terror, "_Put it back! Put it back!_"

_Shit_, I thought. Marcell had been happy to see the calm, smiling Renata, but a shrill, screaming Renata was like newborn catnip laced with speed. By the time I got back into view, Jane was screeching as Marcell launched himself straight at her midsection. It seemed the ex-lawyer hadn't lost his acting ability—or it might just have been newborn unpredictablility—but letting Marcell out of confinement hadn't been Jane's most rational idea.

"Renata!" I called out. "Come over here and shield Jane!" but she was practically jabbering in terror in the corner of the room. _Not even as much sense as Adrienne_, I admitted bitterly. She'd at least been quiet.

I jumped at Marcell and grabbed his left arm from behind, but he'd already knocked Jane onto her back and was still tearing at her with his free hand. Bella darted in beside me and for a moment we wrestled him together, like two children handling a python.

"Jane, if you would be so kind as to go upstairs and request that Rolfe and Felix come and join us?" I asked, a bit throatily. I wasn't sure if she registered my request and I didn't find myself caring much. I turned to Bella. "Now will you listen to me?" I asked, doubling over temporarily as Marcell got his feet underneath him and kicked me hard in the stomach.

"Edward, this isn't exactly the best time," she answered.

"I'm jealous of Jacob Black," I choked out, standing up just in time to duck under Marcell's arm as he took a wild swing at my head, "but I don't think you should blame me for it. Now the way I acted about it might be another matter..."

"Whatever," she told me. "Renata, a little help?" she called over her shoulder. I turned and looked to see if Renata was in any better shape, but Marcell took advantage of this to wrench his right arm free of Bella's grip and swipe hard at her neck.

I turned with a loud snarl and held Marcell's arms behind his head. Damn but it was hard to get a good angle... Renata came hurrying toward us. "I yelled at you because I was jealous," I managed to say before Marcell twisted hard enough to make my skin rasp like an aluminum sheet. I let go with a gasp.

I risked turning my eyes back to Bella. "I kissed you because I was jealous." Marcell braced his feet against the far wall and leaped toward me. I stepped back and let him fly between us, crashing into the support columns hard enough to make the stonework rain down dust.

"You're right; I was an ass," I said, sweeping Marcell's legs out from under him and ducking to the side as he flailed at the hem of my cloak. "And I promise that I will give my all to see that it does not happen again.

"But I'm going to be jealous of _any_ man who's had your favor, even if it was only a smile," I said. "And _that_ part you're going to have to get used to."

"If it troubles you, I can try to keep it to myself, but there it is," I said. I looked over my shoulder to where Renata seemed to have distracted Marcell into running at her. I blinked hard. Bella had been right; it did make a person dizzy. I looked back toward Bella, who was watching me with quiet eyes. "I won't be so damned irrational about it next time. But there it is," I said again, taking another step toward her. "I'm going to be jealous of you because, out of everything in this world, you're what I like best."

Bella looked at me for what seemed like a long moment. Then Marcell made a throaty gasp and she slipped to the side. I kicked the cell gate open as she and Renata all but lifted the newborn off his feet to drag him back inside. Marcell snarled and ran toward the door, but I already had my shoulder to the grate and felt the lock click shut just as Bella and Renata slipped back out into the hallway.

_Edward?_ came Renata's thoughts. They were almost startling. This was the first time she'd tried to speak to me directly through my gift before. _I can manage him, Edward. You two go_. I watched her make eye contact with Bella and give a nod.

"I got permission, by the way," I said. "Write the letter, but give it to me to send. It must look as though it came from me."

"You won't look at what I write?" she asked.

I turned to look at her, blinking at the concern in her dark amber eyes. What would she write to Jacob Black that she wouldn't want me to see? I felt my mouth set. I had a rival for her affections, and one who wasn't doing too badly despite being an ocean and two continents away. "If you ask me not to," I said, "then I will not read what you write, but there must be no reply. It would be too dangerous for him and for us." That had I had no intention of fighting fair. Let dog boy have his love note. He couldn't have _her_. "And nothing treasonous," I added. "Just in case he doesn't destroy the letter. There are no statutes of limitations here. Aro could kill us a hundred years from now for one wrong word today."

"Thank you," Bella said quietly, eyes full of something that I didn't want to understand. Gratitude. Relief. Affection, and I doubted it was for me.

I didn't like it, but it was only one little note. Anything short of a profession of eternal devotion and a plea that he wait for her to be free... No, I could beat that. Jacob Black wasn't going to win this one.

"I know this was difficult for you," Bella was saying, "but they saved me. Laurant was going to _kill_ me. I owe them this."

I nodded tightly. I would tell myself that was the only reason she wanted this. I would tell myself that honor demanded that I repay the men who'd helped my lady when I could not. It was kind of her to let me think that was the only reason she wanted this.

"But that's not why I was mad at you," she said.

I looked up. Of all the people who's thoughts I couldn't read, it would be the girl I fell in love with.

"It's because _that_ was why you kissed me," she said. She shook her head, corners of her mouth going tight. The tension from dealing with Marcell probably didn't help, but I could tell she'd been holding this in for a while. "You'll go through this whole _charade_ about making it look like we're together, but no, no you won't so much as lay a finger on me without flinching, but I mention Jacob, I mention the guy I completely screwed over because I was still so hung up on you that I couldn't see straight—" I managed to stifle the smile before she saw it. "—and you go to town." She shook her head. "My friends' lives are at stake, my parents' lives are at stake, and I care more about what stupid shit you're going to pull next." I could empathize with that last. With my blindness and her constant rebellion, what a pair we made.

"Did you love him?" I asked.

"Still do." She gave a stunted laugh. "I practically pureed his heart into rebound chili, but I do."

It was like watching a crystal crack deep inside. Something appears to be clear and all one piece and then suddenly it has layers and corners and changes in between until you worry your mind may lose itself just trying to figure them all out. Bella was more complicated than I'd realized, and it was starting to look like she always had been.

I watched her close her eyes as she sat down on the stair. She looked like she wanted to be ten thousand miles away. "I thought it would go away, when I saw you again or when I got turned, but it didn't. It's exactly the same."

Of course it was. A vampire's personality became set when she was turned. She would always love Jacob, and I would always love her. But she hadn't said that she didn't love me too.

"I'm sorry to have taken you away from him." I meant it. Almost.

"You didn't take me away from anywhere. It was my decision."

She'd saved me. She'd left her Jacob and she'd come to Italy to save me. That by itself didn't mean that she would have taken me back, but it was starting to look like my original plan hadn't entirely worked.

"You had to kiss me because of the _worst_ thing I've ever done," she said.

"I'm sorry," I said.

She looked at me carefully. "You mean it this time," she said.

"It helps if I know why I'm saying it," I answered.

I sat down, not touching her, not close enough to touch her, and I waited.

"So this whole pretending thing," she said. "What was that, me in a holding pattern? Keep me out of circulation until you got your head on straight?"

"No," I insisted. "It was about your safety and mine. It was so we could spend time together without anyone asking why. It was—"

"It was so the other men here would think I was with you," she said. "You said it was so they wouldn't trouble me."

I didn't have much to say after that. "Did you want them to?" I asked at last, remembering how upset she'd been about Byron.

"No," she said. She licked her lips. "But pretending to be together bothered me a lot and I don't like that you had a reason for it that you didn't tell me about."

"I didn't know I had it."

"Edward," Bella said, fingers reaching out into the air in front of her, "I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here. Does that mean you want to do this being mates thing for real?"

I looked away.

"There!" she said. "_That's_ what I'm talking about. You say you want me one minute, but the next you act like you can't stand me."

"I can't stand the _word_," I snapped, finally meeting her eyes as she went silent. "A mate is what a dog has, Bella. It's what a rat has. You shouldn't be so eager to pin that label to your chest. Esme's not Carlisle's _mate_." I acted like the concept was repulsive because it _was_.

"I didn't know you felt like that," she said quietly.

"I would have told you."

"I didn't know I had to ask," she said. "It looked like... Like with the way you acted, you were already giving me an answer."

I ran one hand over my eyes and forehead, "Bella," I said, "it's been a strange couple of months."

She laughed then, a real laugh. I thought it would stop, but she just kept laughing. She touched her right eye with the back of her hand, as if she'd shed a tear. We couldn't cry, so she laughed. "That's for damned sure," she said as her voice stopped hitching. "_Damn._"

I might have laughed too, but after what we'd just seen with Jane, unpredictable behavior didn't seem as refreshing as it once had.

"So if I want to know why you're doing something, I get to ask?" she said.

"Ask away," I offered.

She pulled her lower lip between her teeth, looking at me speculatively. "What's the rest of the reason?" she asked.

"The rest of the reason for what?" I asked cautiously.

"Edward," she warned.

I breathed out, slowly. For this, I needed fresh air. "I don't like that you've killed people," I said. It seemed it was a good day for understatements.

"You've killed," she said.

"I know."

"You've even done it on purpose, when no one was making you."

"I know."

She leaned back, watching me. I felt the words sink out of the air and settle down beside us. Yes, I was a hypocrite if feelings had to be rational. They didn't. I'd liked her more when she was better than I was. I had never wanted to bring her down to my level.

"That's not all, is there?" she asked.

I felt my head tilt back. "No," I admitted.

She didn't say anything. I felt half a smile twitch across my lips. She wasn't going to make this easy for me, was she?

I'd asked Aro. I'd asked Carlisle. I'd asked Marcus. I'd spent weeks asking myself.

"Are you the same?" I said, feeling the words in my nose, my throat, the pit of my stomach. "From before you were turned, Bella, are you the same?"

Her face cleared. "This is about souls, isn't it?" she asked. "Like that day in the woods—this is about my soul?"

She stared at the wall for a long moment, "My God," she said. "Edward, do you..." She shook her head. "I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to _do_ this." She looked at me. "Edward, when I think about it, I'm not even sure what a soul _is_."

"It's not meant to be logical," I said. She probably thought it was religious nonsense.

"Edward, if the soul's the part of me that can feel guilt, then yes, it's always been here. It feels the same." I felt her fingertips on my chin, and I looked up at her. "If it's that part of you that made you not just kill me in Biology the day we met... Are you going to tell me it's gone? The person who could've just left Renata to deal with Marcell and Jane by herself? You don't even like her. You could have just let her get shredded."

I closed my eyes, remembering the feel of tears.

If she was Bella Swan, then I was Edward Masen.

It had ...comforted me to think that boy had followed his parents and friends, that he was still with them, wherever they'd gone. It wasn't a betrayal if I forgot the details, took a new name, called Carlisle my father. If I wasn't Edward Masen, then I was free and he was where neither Aro nor any of the terrible things I'd done could touch him.

I felt the whole image, almost real enough to touch, dissolve like a cloud. It was inside me. It always had been. I wasn't free. My soul wasn't safe in heaven; it was still right here, tied to Volterra along with the rest of me.

I looked up at the sound of cloth moving against smooth skin. Bella met my eyes as she carefully leaned closer, as if there were still any chance she'd slip. She smiled. A sad smile.

My soul was trapped in Aro's service.

So was hers.

"I don't understand, Edward. I don't understand how something like that could make you act this way. You really thought I wasn't me?"

I nodded tightly, not looking at her. She didn't understand. The fact that she didn't understand meant that she probably had a better grasp on all of this than I did.

"I missed you too, you know," she said, her voice turning hot. "Did you know that you look different? You have a tiny mark, just there," she said, touching my right temple. "I guess you had chicken pox as a child." It had been a fight with Jasper, just practice taken too far. Esme had been petrified.

"And your jaw is just a little longer on your right side than on your left," she said. "There's more. I could sit here all night and tell you all the things about you that I couldn't see before. But I do miss looking at you, the way I used to, and seeing how perfect you were." She turned to the side, fingers clenching on the edge of the stair. "And I miss the way you used to act."

"Bella—"

"And _none of that_ means that you don't have a soul," she seethed. "None of it means that you aren't right here with me, right now, that you haven't had my back for six months straight."

_More like eight but it's nice that she noticed_, I thought, but I kept it to myself. I doubted that sarcasm would be appreciated.

"You asked me what I wanted?" I said carefully, opening my eyes, "I want to re-earn your trust."

She was quiet. "That could take a while."

"It's all right," I said. "We have time."

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I'm starting to regret posting chapter thirty from Edward's perspective. I'd thought that the Bella version spilled the beans too soon, but it seems that things aren't as obvious as I'd thought they were. I know this chapter cuts off a bit awkwardly, but that is because I'm planning on finishing this conversation from Bella's perspective.

I _just_ rechecked BD and found that one of the nomads is named Randall. Please assume that the Randall I've mentioned so far in IKMD is another vampire who happens to have the same name.

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	34. Ch 33 Alibi

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

This one's a titch shorter than my recent usual, but I felt that the last chapter needed a quick wrap-up. I'm also regretting not writing chapter thirty from Bella's perspective. I feel that a lot of the information given in this chapter would have been more natural if presented there. But hey, if anyone can tolerate sub-optimal pacing, it's Twifans.

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"He took a deep breath and stared, unseeingly, at the ground for a long moment. His mouth twisted the tiniest bit. When he finally looked up, his eyes were different, harder–like the liquid gold had frozen solid." –Bella, _New Moon_

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He had to do this now. He _had_ to do this just when I'd figured out how to manage. It didn't help that I couldn't tell for sure what he was talking about. From what I could piece together, Edward was trying to say that his brain had broken down at some point, and it had taken a while for the right custom part to get shipped to the shop.

But that was logical me. While logical me was filing papers and computing possibilities, emotional me was doing jumping jacks on a trampoline while shooting flare guns at anyone telling her not to get her hopes up. I felt like I was a swimming pool that had been drained all winter, and someone was finally filling me up.

"So this was about my soul?" I asked again.

"I thought it was," he said.

I licked my lips. "I want to understand what you're saying, Edward," I said.

"I'm saying I want you to take me back," he told me. His eyes were like two liquid pools, impossibly clear, as if he wanted me to see all the way down into him. I could hardly tell what I saw there.

"I know you don't believe me," he said, "not yet. But I would dearly love any chance to convince you. Bella I want you to take me back."

Now I recognized it. Months ago, I'd learned that Edward was the one person on this planet who could hurt me more than anyone else. It looked like he'd figured out that it cut both ways. He was afraid of me like I was afraid of him.

And he knew that I could tell him to go to hell. After what he'd put me through, it was nice to know that I could if I wanted to, but there was a good chance he'd actually strap on some asbestos hiking boots and do it.

My stupid lower lip was shaking. I pushed my hand down on top of it but it wouldn't stop. "Why now?" I asked. "What changed your mind?"

"I guess I always knew, a little," he said. "When you started to act like yourself again..." He shook his head. "You weren't worrying about your midterms or taking care of Charlie, but everything you've done in Volterra, you've done the way Bella Swan would. I should have known long ago." He closed his eyes. "Master Marcus talked some sense into me."

It was like icewater straight to the pit of my stomach.

Marcus, one of the ones who could move people's emotions. And Edward had called him "Master" without flinching. Oh God...

"How have I upset you?" Edward was asking intently, like a waiter who'd just dropped a dozen glasses. "Bella _please_ don't make me try to figure it out myself again."

I eyed him carefully. I had to make sure.

I leaned over and gently placed my hand on his wrist. Touching him helped me.

I hadn't been doing it as much, not since he'd almost figured me out that day in the woods. Because if Edward knew—or even if he just picked up on enough clues—then Aro would know, and then they'd make me do it all the time, to people like Alec and Felix and Jane. I hated doing it to Jane. Worse, they'd make me stop doing it to Edward, and then Chelsea would get him.

It was still hard to do on purpose, but I could manage when I wasn't too distracted. And with Edward, it was always worth it. I imagined that I was stretching the last layer of my skin. I imagined I was putting my arms around him. I imagined holding his head in my lap and stroking his hair like I had that day with Gianna.

When it worked, it was like a door swinging open, and I could see him in my mind, all the bright, blazing life of him. Edward might think he'd been defeated by this place, but he never would be. He couldn't be. Not if he still felt like this every time. Every time I did it I made myself remember that he wasn't mine, but he _felt_ like he was. I tried not to think about doing this with other people.

At first I'd thought I was crazy, the way I'd seen Alice and then Edward and Oleg, but after a few times I'd had to accept that I wasn't. I did have a power. I hadn't realized that it _did_ anything except make sparkly pictures in my head until that day Edward had turned Marcell. Even then I hadn't been sure. I still wasn't sure. Edward had said that he could still hear Demetri's thoughts while he was mine, so whatever it was that I did couldn't have been blocking his gift, but it did _something_, and whatever that something was, I had no plans to stop.

One minute he'd been telling me what a harmless little darling Chelsea was, and the next minute he'd been back to normal. That was what I knew. That was all I needed to know. I still wasn't sure the whole thing wasn't my imagination, but it happened almost every time I made myself see Edward. Ever since then, I'd been ripping out that bitch's evil little stitchwork every chance I got.

I would have loved to have asked Edward about it. I would have loved to tell him that I was special the way he was special and let him help me understand things the way he was letting me help him, but I just couldn't. Not until the plan was done and we were away from here.

I worried, though. I wondered whether that the back-and-forth of it might do Edward some harm, like a piece of metal that's bent along the same seam until it breaks, but it could never be as bad as what Chelsea would do to him if Aro made me stop.

Edward was smiling. He looked a lot calmer than he had a moment earlier. As a matter of fact, he looked as happy as the day I'd first told him I loved him. I must have missed something. Didn't matter. "Say it again," I whispered intently. "Please don't ask, but I need to hear you say it again."

Edward leaned toward me, "_I adore you_," he breathed into the air between us. "I always have, even when I was too much of a fool to realize it."

I didn't look away. I stayed. I stayed locked in those eyes. My stupid lower lip moved again. "This really is you talking, isn't it?" I managed to say. I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn't look. I loved what I was seeing but I just couldn't look.

"Yes," he said, though he must have been confused. I felt him put his free hand on my upper arm and squeeze. Damn but it felt good to have him do that and know it wasn't because we had an audience. "I mean every word," he said. "And I promise..."

The words dissolved as his lips touched mine.

For a second, I couldn't think at all; there was too much to feel. He was barely touching me, but there was so much meaning in it, in the rustle of his clothes, the scent of his skin, and especially that flare in his being that perfectly matched the funny ache in my chest where my heart still wanted to pound. His hand left my shoulder and grazed the back of my head. There was just something about a kiss. It was more than just affection, it was approval, acceptance, trust, and closeness. Edward could always make me feel like he _wanted_ me.

That was why I'd been so mad at him, I realized between caresses. He'd given me all these things—or pretended to give them—and then he'd said that it was only an act. When he pulled away long enough to whisper my name against my cheek, I managed to wonder when the hell he'd gotten all the way from begging my forgiveness to this. It occurred to me that I ought to, I don't know, slap him or something.

Edward lifted our clasped hands until the backs of my knuckles were pressed against his chest.

That was it, I realized. That was why he thought he got to kiss me. That was why he'd acted so weird in the woods. Holding hands was somewhere around the Victorian equivalent of third base. Every time I'd de-washed Edward's brain, he'd thought I was coming on to him.

In all fairness, he wasn't _that_ off. If I'd had the slightest idea of how to put moves on him, I'd have been doing it double time since April. It was funny how life balanced itself out.

I lifted my free hand and just barely traced the line of his jaw. He released my mouth long enough to lean his forehead against mine.

"You may hit me again if you wish," he said quietly.

Smug son of a bitch.

"Edward Cullen, don't you dare tempt me."

"So how did it go?" whispered Renata. I wasn't sure why she bothered. The petrified hags could hear us anyway.

"It went okay," I said. God, if I could still blush, I'd have been purple to my ears. From the way Renata was grinning, though, it was showing on my face in other ways.

Old Bitch Two muttered something in Etrusca-speak.

"There is no need to draw assumptions, Athenodora," Old Bitch One answered in English. "They are all this way now."

Athenodora answered, and I picked up the words for "underskirt" and "slut." That was the weird thing that Italian and Chinese both had in common. There was the classroom version, and then there was what people actually spoke. Chinese was so different from city to city that it was almost like a dozen different languages. Italian was the same way, but the effect was less intense. I'd learned Italian pretty well—studying with Edward—but I was still limited to a word here and a word there when it came to the wives. Fortunately, with us modern girls, they tended to use the same ones over and over.

Sometimes I wanted to shout in their faces that I was an honest-to-goddamned virgin. But sooner or later I'd have to stop shouting it and that I'd rather that these calcified zombie queens not know exactly when that was.

Mm... But if _that_ wasn't getting ahead of myself...

I figured that I really ought to have made him suffer a little more. He'd shown that he was willing to grovel, and he certainly deserved it. Stupid son of a gun didn't know what he'd put me through, making me _pretend_ to be his girlfriend just so that I wouldn't look at anyone else until he pulled his head out of his you-know-what. There was a part of me that felt like I really owed it to Sadie Hawkins or somebody not to just let him come crawling back the first chance I got.

But before I'd left, Edward had given me a lopsided smile. His _real_ smile. And he'd looked so damned happy.

Okay, so it was also to keep these freaks from jumping at me the way Byron had. Okay, so it was also to let us hang out together without people immediately thinking we were plotting to blow up the building. I got it. There was overprotective and then there was just protective. So what if it had _also_ been about Edward going crazy jealous whenever someone else looked my way? Besides, who was I to talk? I'd told Edward to his face that I'd snuck out into the woods that day just to see him.

_Screw it,_ I thought. Screw whether or not girls in general should do what I was doing. I wasn't anyone's role model. Screw what was right for anyone who wasn't Edward and me. He was Edward, and I was Bella, and that was the only point of any of this. That was what I'd been working for all these months.

I wanted Edward and I wanted my freedom. I hadn't figured that I'd get Edward first, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to take him. I'd figured I'd get us out of here and then I'd finally be able to tell him what I'd been working on this whole time. Even if that hadn't been enough to make him _love_ me, at the absolute worst, he'd have felt grateful. I could work with grateful.

Thank God I'd had wives duty next and not library duty. No _way_ would I have been able to concentrate on the price of sheep feed in western Ohio. Up in the tower, though, that was when I wanted to be distracted.

Some days we were lucky. Some days all we had to do was clean the place. Sometimes Athenodora asked Renata to dress her hair for her, which Renata seemed to know how to do. It took a while, but it didn't seem that bad. Then we got to stand at either side of the doorway in case they needed anything. Those days, I could just zone out, go still and become part of the furniture.

"_Bring me the bowl._"

Crap.

Renata's eyes met mine for just a split second. She didn't have to say anything. We both knew it was my turn.

I walked calmly to the corner of the room and picked up a basin and ewer. I let my face become a stone angel, bland with just a hint of a smile, just like I'd seen on Jane my first day here. I set the basin on a short table beside Sulpicia's easel and poured Old Bitch Two a tall glass of water from the ewer, which I then returned to its place.

Fuck fuck _fuck_ but I was never going to sit still for a million years or do vampire crack or whatever the hell it was that had turned these girls into Rocky and Bitchwinkle.

Edward and I had gone through an anatomy textbook a few months back, and I'd figured out some of what was going on with the wives. At some point, their eyes had scummed over and turned gray, probably because their eyelids were so rough that they added new scratches to their corneas with every blink. Oops. At some point, they'd lost the ability to move quickly over long distances, maybe because of petrification to their ligaments. Rats. I'd helped both of them change clothes more times than I cared to remember, and, at some point, their skin had become cracked and fissured so that they barely looked human in some very unattractive places. Oh well.

The cilia, the little hair cells that lifted dust and dirt out of our throats and lungs like a tiny bucket brigade? At some point, they'd all gone brittle and broken off like stucco.

Athenodora lifted the glass to her lips and pulled it straight through to her lungs. I wondered if Caius was glad she'd lost that gag reflex. She held still, eyes half-closed, and I pictured the water filtering down through the branching, rootlike pockets all the way to her alveoli. Then she leaned forward and heaved it all back into the basin. Some days she couldn't get it all out. Some days she needed help. At least I was practiced in case I ever had to take care of a kid with cystic fibrosis.

Some of it splashed over and got my sleeve wet. I didn't step back. That was rude.

Athenodora picked up the glass again. Wait too long and the dust builds up, Renata had told me. Sulpicia had waited too long once, and her voice had failed her, little puffs of dust clogging her nose as she tried to speak.

I had to admit, I'd done some slacking the first time I'd been told to clean this place. Now, I made sure it was spotless. Heck, I'd been begging to change the damned air filters. A speck of dust floating in the air today was one I might have to scrape off Sulpicia's epiglottis tomorrow.

Athenodora snapped something at me as I carried the bowl downstairs to dispose of its contents. Damn but I hoped Plan J worked soon. Otherwise, I was going wring this woman's craggy neck and get executed.

I elbowed open the door to the upstairs bathroom. The mirror that I'd broken had been replaced months ago, but I still avoided looking at it. According to Renata, Marcus had designed this room for the wives' use, so that they could take care of their bodily functions in private, with plumbing, like normal people. Only Sulpicia hadn't wanted to leave the tower, and where Old Bitch One didn't go, Old Bitch Two didn't go. I turned on the water in the shower and tried not to think about the chunks of gray muck disappearing down the drain. I tried to pretend that the bowl had only been full of bean dip that Charlie had left in the fridge too long, or motor oil from Jake's garage. I missed them both so much it was like an aching wisdom tooth. All in good time.

I shut off the water and hurried back upstairs. I didn't want to leave Renata alone with them too long. Bad things happened when I took my eye off the ball, and there was a big difference between collateral damage and Renata getting slapped to death because I'd felt like taking a break before heading back into the cobwebby lion's den.

"What do you think of the matter with Jane?" asked Sulpicia. Fantastic. They were talking to each other like we weren't here again. That meant they weren't asking us to do gross stuff for them.

"_Is she the little harlot with the dark hair and the skirt hitched up to her knees?_" asked Athenodora.

"No," answered Sulpicia. "That is Bella, the one who helped with your ablutions just now."

"_Shameless thing. She comes here with the smell of her man still on her._" My eyebrow shot up. Really? I found Edward's personal scent quite pleasant, but if showering before heading up here would make Athenodora shut her yap, I could always ask him to make out with me again after I got off tower duty. Mm... kissing...

"Jane is the one who came with her brother," said Sulpicia.

Athenodora's eyes swung left and right. Perhaps she was trying to remember what Jane looked like. Perhaps she was stumped by the fact that, despite being a raving psychopath, Jane was impossible to mistake for a slut.

Sometimes I didn't know why Sulpicia bothered. Old Bitch Two was usually at least halfway to out of it. And she never tried to talk to us outside of giving orders. Did she ever get to talk to anyone?

Aro came to visit, I remembered. Whatever else I could say about Aro, he could carry on a conversation. But that meant that Sulpicia's husband was the only person she could really interact with... That couldn't be healthy.

I managed not to smile. _Edward_ had wanted me to have my own friends, both here and back in Forks. He'd encouraged me to trust Renata. Of course, that was also about making inroads so that the other Volturi wouldn't want to kill us just for kicks...

"My lord says that Jane attacked the newborn again today," said Sulpicia. "The male one. The lawyer."

I'd already gone still by the door, but I could swear I felt my knees shaking. Poor Marcell.

The day Edward had gotten back from China, I'd gone to see Marcell as soon as I could. Over the past weeks, Renata and I had been trying to keep him calm. We'd even gotten him to talk to us a few times, but the day Jane had gone after him, he'd kept his body curled toward the wall. He usually looked up when Renata and I walked in. He usually acted like he recognized us. He hadn't said a word that day or moved so much as an eyelash. The day after that had been the same. He _still_ wasn't back to normal, or at least, ravening vampire newborn normal.

It brought it home more than Edward's lectures ever had: I was in a very dangerous place, surrounded by dangerous people, and if I put one toe out of line, someone was going to get hurt.

This time it had been Marcell. I'd figured it would be Heidi again, or maybe that snob Adrienne. Up until then, Jane had only gone after other women—and I'd entertained a fantasy or two about her and Chelsea knocking each other's fangs out—and Felix had only had a piece of it after getting in the way.

I hated it here. Marcell _hadn't done anything_. He hadn't done _anything_ and Jane just got to go in and mess him up like that. Edward was terrified of making one false move, I wasn't allowed to cover my wrists when I carted sludge for the wives, and Jane didn't get so much as a talking-to for turning one of the new guys catatonic. I would have thought that Caius or Aro or the other one would have at least called her to the floor on it.

I didn't like blaming myself for shit that other people did. That was more Edward's thing. But I felt terrible about what had happened to Marcell. Jane had broken him open like an egg, but I was trying to make one hell of an omelette. Besides, if I looked too guilty, someone might figure it out.

Edward was always nagging me to be more careful and it drove me crazy that I couldn't tell him how careful I really was. I had my rules: at least three plausible reasons for everything I did. I'd arranged to be out of Volterra when Jane blew her fuse. Everyone would think I'd just snuck out to go see Edward in the woods. If they didn't believe that, then I was just being a stir-crazy newborn vampire craving some fresh air. If they didn't believe that, then I was seeing how long it took Demetri to notice I was gone. Layers to everything. Always a backup plan.

As much as Chelsea's gift made my skin crawl, wiping out her influence on someone like Jane was like replacing an axe murderer's psych meds with blue M&Ms. I shuddered. I didn't like using my gift on Jane. It was like taking something slimy and poisonous and tucking it inside my shirt to keep it warm, a baby leech, a giant hornworm with teeth.

At least it was working. Jane was raising hell and knocking out the damnable unity of this place. If Adrienne left, then other people would leave. Soon this guard would leak like a sieve, and, if we were lucky, no one would care if Edward and I left too.

Of course, that was just one scenario. Plan J had thousands of possible outcomes, and those were only the ones I'd thought of. It was also possible that Aro would pull Edward tighter to him than ever. It was also possible that we'd both get killed when this place came down around us, but it was better than doing _nothing_.

Edward and I had read history books, making up for the college courses that hadn't taken when I hadn't become a freshman this fall. Back in 1700s South America, a man would buy a young slave and apprentice him to a craftsman. The young slave would live with his teacher, do his job, and learn his trade. Then the owner and the slave would go to court and set a price. Then, over the course of fifteen years, the slave would slowly work and save and, by the time he was in his thirties or forties, he would pay back the speculator and earn his freedom. Of course, by then he wasn't a little nobody any more. By then, he was valuable, trained, and expensive. The speculators got more than their money's worth.

It kept the slave obedient. It kept him from running away. He knew he didn't have to.

If Aro hadn't wanted me to cause trouble, he could have done _that_. I could wait fifteen years to get out of here, but I couldn't wait fifteen years to _not_ get out of here.

Athenodora dipped back into her own dialect, and I missed most of her response. It sounded like a question.

"Yes, and Adrienne as well," answered Sulpicia. "She is talking of leaving."

"_Adrienne?_" said Old Bitch Two. Huh. What had gotten her in the wives' good graces? "_Not in this house. Jane must go_."

"I am hesitant, my dear. You know how my lord adores her."

I managed not to show anything on my face—I hoped. I'd seen Aro with his favorite "dear one." I couldn't help but contrast it with Edward's fervent _I adore you_ earlier in the stairwell.

"_She must go. To the house in Firenze if nowhere else_."

"That house is gone, Athenodora, long since."

"_She must go_."

That was something I hadn't considered. If they sent Jane away before she self-destructed—I was picturing Eliza from _Sense and Sensibility_ going into confinement in the country—then that might diffuse the whole Plan J situation. Aro wouldn't be happy, but he wouldn't have chunks of his guard falling off left and right. Hm.

Odd...

I'd always though that Old Bitch One called the shots, but... I made mental notes of questions to ask Renata once we were free to talk. Did Athenodora make the decisions, in her addled, perfectly centered way, only to have Sulpicia put them together so they didn't sound like cat lady babble? Could be. Could be. Maybe as far as Volterran housekeeping was concerned, the wives were one unit, and Sulpicia just happened to be its voice.

How much influence did the wives actually have in Volterra? They didn't seem to affect much from up here, but that didn't mean they were completely useless. Caius and Aro didn't usually require the presence of servants when they came up here for private time—thank God—and who said that they didn't have an influence on the top decisions? It was worth learning more about.

After all, if Plan J fell apart, I was going to need another one.

He was waiting for me when we came back down. Aro hadn't wanted him. Renata gave me a knowing smile—the same one she'd been giving me for six months; showed how much she knew—and left for the lower levels. I didn't remember what it was that she did at this time of day. I also didn't care.

Edward didn't say anything, just kept staring right into my eyes from the landing, only a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

I narrowed my eyes a little. So smug. Maybe I should have made him grovel a little more. He looked away for a moment, then held out his hand.

We usually walked arm in arm, like a couple in the background of a Sherlock Holmes drawing. I could tell that this was something different. I took the remaining two steps down to the landing and took his offered right hand with my left. We walked away from the tower with his upper arm just barely brushing my shoulder. He hesitantly laced his fingers in between mine.

I suddenly remembered Alice and Jasper in our hazy drive from Forks to Arizona. Although I was sure Alice had been in the back seat with me, I somehow pictured their hands twining over the gear shift with a practiced, eyeless ease. I'd only ever seen old couples do that, the ones who'd been together since they'd been young.

_So that's what you want, Edward Cullen_, I thought. I could picture it, the two of us, somewhere far away, marked on the inside by all the same years of the same life. I licked my lips. _Will you still love me when I'm old and craggy?_ Too soon to say it. Too soon to say any of it. But he'd been right about one thing: we had time.

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I'm starting to regret posting chapter thirty from Edward's perspective. I'd thought that the Bella version spilled the beans too soon, but it seems that things aren't as obvious as I'd thought they were.

I _just_ rechecked BD and found that one of the nomads is named Randall. Please assume that the Randall I've mentioned so far in IKMD is another vampire who happens to have the same name.

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	35. Ch 34 Unraveling

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

To everyone who said that they found the previous chapter amusing, thank you so much for your kind words. Remember, kids, _don't do drugs._ You'll end up with vampire lung lint.

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"We owe the Volturi for our present way of life." –Jasper, _Eclipse_

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"You're sure?" she asked.

I tried not to wince against the compulsion in her voice. Heidi was not shy about using her gift when she wanted something, and now she wanted the truth.

"She wasn't lying. It doesn't show," I said gently. The new receptionist hadn't noticed the marks that Jane had left on Heidi's left cheek, not until she'd been told exactly where to look. Even then, she had needed bright light.

"Adrienne did a wonderful job," I said honestly. The little harpy was good with her claws at least. She'd put her patient back together perfectly.

Heidi nodded, a gauze-thin veil of indifference covering a whirlwind of humbled pride. Her scars wouldn't show to humans, but they did to other vampires. She was still a fine-looking woman, tall and well-formed, and her position within the coven meant she'd never lack admirers, but she was no longer flawless. Her appearance was now beautiful only to those who knew her story. Adrienne had been exulting to herself all day, and she wasn't the only one.

I opened my mouth to say, "Good luck," and then I realized where she was going, eyes violet beneath blue contacts. "I hope you return safely, Heidi," I said. I could make myself mean that, at least.

"Thank you," she said quietly. She would be quiet now. She would never speak again without checking twice to see if Jane would be offended. Heidi took two steps toward the door and then turned back toward me. _Thank you_, I could see again in her thoughts, this time interspersed with the sound of my voice in the hallway, drawing Jane away from her. "The master says you're to find out—" she couldn't say the rest. It didn't even occur to her to make the sounds.

I nodded.

"Do it," she said, voice as unmistakable as a pointed finger.

"Yes, ma'am," I answered.

She left. She would meet Richard outside, and he would escort her on her fishing trip. She hadn't wanted to go alone. Her courage was no longer flawless either.

I turned and headed up the stairs.

Aro was not enjoying my reports on Jane's activity. His favorite follower was becoming more erratic. The crowd, the chorus of voices that was Volterra, was becoming more restless, like a white cloud turning dark. There would be a storm soon if no solution was found, and Aro was not pleased that I had not found it. Worse, Caius was irritated with the lack of movement on his calm newborns. I had two masters looking at me from two directions, both capable of effecting dire consequences if I did not perform the impossible.

... that should have bothered me far more than it did.

I opened the door. She looked up from her book. "Hello Edward," she said. Her eyes were darkened amber today, brown on their way toward black. I found the changing color gave her an intensity, perfectly balanced by the tiny touch of mischief in her smile. _I have a secret_, she seemed to say.

"Bella." I smiled back as I sat down beside her. I knew what her secret was. "What are we doing today?"

"Irregular verbs," she said, her eyes not leaving mine.

"Ah." God but she could have been reciting the tax code for all I cared, so long as she kept looking at me like I was the last drink of water in a desert full of heat.

Bella had mastered the basics of Italian and we'd moved on to German. She turned down to her book and I watched her through the wheeling dust motes. The barest edge of a shaft of sunlight had caught a few strands of her hair, turning some of them gold. Had this never happened before or had I only forbidden myself to notice?

I felt the same, quiet lightness buzzing inside me. She was letting me back in.

There were only so many things that I could do differently. Since the beginning, I'd been careful to make sure that we showed all the outward appearances of a mated pair, so, to all outward appearances, nothing had changed. We still walked hand in hand. When we were both off shift, we still studied together or practiced fighting down below.

When we didn't have an audience, I did what I could. I pulled her chair out for her when she took her seat. I sat next to her instead of across from her. I let the edge of my arm touch hers. She never moved away.

I still offered her my arm when we walked through the hallways. Having our coven think we were mates was still a good idea. It was only that the truth wasn't quite as far from the fiction as it had been.

She seemed to smile more, and not just at me. And, according to Rolfe, I seemed less irritable, "not as much of an uptight jerkwad," in his words. Of course, he'd mentally added, _I can't wait until he actually gets laid, though. Could've sworn she'd gotten him done that day in the woods. She'd better hop to it before he gets his prissy back on._ Gift or not, he was too perceptive for his own good, or mine.

But she _did_ smile more. I _did_ feel easier. I hadn't known how much weight I'd been carrying. It was as if I'd been wearing a chain and she'd just taken it off me. I still felt guilty. I still had miles to go to make it all up to her, but she was letting me try. Better, she seemed _happy_ to let me try.

I wasn't sure how I could prove myself. The simplest, truest answer was that I would have to show that I could be faithful over time, give her years of my loyalty and affection, but now that I'd had a taste of what I wanted, I was impatient for more. I still had my reservations, but I had accepted them when I'd decided I wanted her to take me back. My love for her might never be the pure creature that it had been during our days in Forks, but that didn't mean it couldn't grow strong.

As far as I could tell, she'd liked her present.

She'd written her letter. I'd had the envelope addressed and ready. She'd put it in my hand and I'd sealed it inside without taking my eyes off her. She'd reached out and clasped my free hand. "Thank you," I'd seen in her eyes.

"Nothing treasonous," I repeated.

She'd nodded, eyes on me and far from me.

I was dying to know what she'd written, what little token of affection she'd tucked in with the practical matters in her open, modern hand, but I _had_ promised.

As I'd tucked the letter into my cloak, she'd bitten her lower lip, looked left and right, and leaned a hand on my upper arm. I'd closed the rest of the distance myself, letting my lips press gently against hers before she pulled away and left for her library shift. After that, I found that I did not mind letting Jacob Black have his warning. I would have everything else.

The more I got, the more I wanted. Her love. Her attention. Her loyalty. Her eyes on me whenever I was near. She'd shift toward me when I sat beside her. She'd smile when I walked into the room. I was still racking my brains to find ways to show her how I felt. I tried to remember what it had been like in Forks. Our first courtship hadn't been easy by any means, but each step had flowed naturally from the one before. Figuring out how to reward Angela Webber for her kindness had taken more mental effort. I'd given Bella her wolves. I was trying to give her her parents. The only other thing that she could possibly want would be to leave Volterra—she spoke of it more often than was truly safe—but that was beyond my reach.

"_Irgendein Glück_?" she asked in halting, schoolchild German.

"_Nicht schon_. I have not figured out what causes Jane's illness," I answered, lapsing back into English with more frustration than I'd meant.

"Don't worry, you will," she said, turning the page of her grammar book as she did so, fingertips of one hand playing gently against the back of my wrist.

"Not if you keep continually distracting me," I answered playfully.

She turned her head toward me slowly and gave me a careful, slow-stepping look, like a skater testing the strength of the ice. At the same time, that look was full of such utter slyness that I was suddenly reminded of my days in Denali.

_Minx_, I thought. Bella might remind me of Tanya when she looked at me with her eyes full of plans, only with her I did not mind being the subject of some wicked plot. Bella's wiles came at me through a veil of innocence that Tanya could never have faked. I'd dealt with Tanya, Adrienne, more high school girls than I could count and a disturbing few teachers. Even my virtuous sister Rosalie had known how to draw a man's eye when she wanted, even if she hadn't seen fit to use her wiles on me. Bella on the other hand had no idea what she was doing—and I loved it. I could never suppress the silly glow inside me whenever I finally realized that she'd spent the previous five minutes trying to be alluring. She'd let her arm brush against mine or leave her knee against my leg exactly as if she'd read how to do it in a fashion magazine and wasn't sure if the author was playing a trick on her or not.

I hadn't realized that I'd made a noise, but I must have. She stopped mid-conjugation and looked up.

"Jane?" she asked quietly.

I nodded, motioning with my hand for her to be silent as I listened to the voices in my head. She did, slowly lowering the edge of her book to the table, pulling her fingers away slowly, as if the fibers could break my concentration. I'd spent so much time listening for Jane that I could hear her almost anywhere in the compound—especially if she was angry. I shifted my weight, preparing to stand up.

_...brother... tearing..._ There was a pair of hands, but they were only clawing the empty air. I could see images of Marcell, of Caroly, of Heidi, but they were visualized, not real. I slowly relaxed back into my chair. Bella let out the breath she'd been holding.

"What was it now?" she asked.

"Nothing this time," I said. "Only her imagination."

"She's getting worse, isn't she?" Bella asked solemnly. I nodded.

Jane had continued to terrorize the coven over the past week. Adrienne and I had been able to reattach Richard's finger, but the bite mark was going to show.

"What are her thoughts like?" she asked me, face masklike with seriousness. "Is she in any pain?" I held back a smile. It was so very like her to care about Jane's well-being, never mind that the little goblin girl might turn on her at any moment. Another thread of my doubts unraveled. I couldn't wait until the whole choking shroud of it had gone.

"No," I said. "If anything, Jane feels better than she has in years."

"You mean she's getting calmer?" Bella asked.

"No, I mean Jane doesn't feel like she's ill," I explained. "It's as if..." I grit my teeth, trying to force the ideas to come. "Her thoughts are scattered now," I said, "but they're..." ...more in motion, more colorful, more like an actual person and less like a stone golem. "Before, when she was well, she was always very focused, but..." I felt her shift closer to me as I closed my eyes.

Jane's thoughts were a whirlwind, a nonstop media blitz of sight and sound and scent and vibration, all in glorious day-bright color.

"It's as if only half the world got in before," I explained. I could feel her hand stroking my hair, light as a feather against the violence in my mind. "Now the volume is up to full blast and it's driving her mad."

"Like a newborn?" Bella prompted, voice as gentle as a mother's at the cradle.

"No..." I trailed off. "Her thoughts were dull before, but now they're—"

"More human?" she asked.

I turned my head to look at her straight on. "Yes," I said. "I would never have thought to put it that way, but yes."

The stunted white seedling grown in the dark had bloomed into a healthy, bleeding nettle. I felt my hands clench into fists. "It _reminds_ me of something," the words were halfway to a growl in my throat. There was some great clue, something that would help me understand the entire problem, present it at the masters' feet solved, and I could not see it. "It reminds me of something and I cannot tell what."

"It's all right," she said quietly. "What did you tell Aro today?"

I was glad for a question that had an answer.

"That Adrienne isn't bluffing," I said. I could see my master's eyes, dark and pensive behind their gray film, his mouth a hard line. "She gets a bit dramatic now and then, but she means it. If Jane attacks her, she will leave. Rolfe can't hold her interest forever."

"But Adrienne's just one person, isn't she?"

She was, and not even a gifted one, not one of Aro's prizes. If it were only Adrienne, Aro might not have minded letting her go. "If she goes, so will others, probably Corin and Richard. Corin's already decided, mostly. He's just too proud to be the first to run."

Corin was a fighter. He'd joined after the Volturi had executed half his coven. Aro had affirmed his innocence and spared him, but the real enticement had been Jane. I'd never seen Corin's talent firsthand, but he was like a miracle in battle, elegant and ruthless. Jane terrified him. Little Jane, who could defeat and humiliate vampires twice her size and ten times her skill. Corin had joined so that he would always have Jane on his own side.

"What then?" asked Bella, but we both knew.

"Then the world knows that Aro can neither protect his warriors nor keep them from deserting." I felt her hand stroke down my head again, and I realized that I was half lying on the table. "Other vampires lose their fear of the law."

I felt her breathe in and out. I didn't have to tell her what that meant. With someone like Bella, the public good was never forgotten.

"What have you figured out about Jane?" Bella whispered. I closed my eyes against the feel of her fingernails on the back of my neck. "Do you have any idea what's caused her to change?"

I shook my head, half lost in the feeling of her hand on my hair. I felt her exhale. In any other context, I would have thought she was relieved, but there could be no relief for us. I didn't move. She didn't stop. I breathed in and out. There was no sound, no heartbeat, no measurement of time save what we gave it.

Of course I came to myself. Of course I couldn't sit here wallowing. I reached up and took her hand with mine, lifting my head up from the table. I took a breath of the stale air, forcing myself to pase every scent—dust, books, stone, wood, Bella—and push thoughts of failure from my mind.

"I will, Bella," I told her, sending the words into the air like a promise. "I haven't found out yet, but I will."

"I know," she whispered.

"And Aro will stop at nothing to put it right," I said, assuring myself as much as her. That man would never allow anything to destabilize the peace and power he'd built over so many centuries.

She looked down, licking her lips. I could see she was still worried.

"I know."

I looked her square in the eye. I'd been meaning to talk to her about this for days, but it was taking more courage than I'd anticipated. "I did, you know," I said before I could back down again.

She looked at me quizzically.

"You said I hadn't laid a finger on you without flinching, but I did."

"I didn't mean walking arm in arm, Edward," she said, showing me that half-smile that she'd always used to cover embarrassment. I still expected to see the blush.

"Neither did I," I said, leaning toward her so that she faced me directly. Did she really not know what I was talking about? But she was frowning, just the tiniest crease of her brows.

"It was only a kiss," I said before her imagination could conjure up something worse. God only knew what she thought I was capable of.

"When?" she asked, still looking confused.

Disappointment seeped through me like tar. That moment had been haunting me daily, and it seemed she didn't even know it had happened.

"The day Marcell was turned," I told her. "Or at least I thought it was a kiss."

Her brow cleared, and I almost felt relieved. "Oh," she said, but then she shook her head. "Not a kiss."

"Oh," I repeated, looking away for a moment. At least now I knew.

"I mean... I was only thinking about ...food," she said. "I would have done it even if—" I'd heard her hair rustle as she shook her head. "It doesn't matter."

_She'd have done it even if it hadn't been me_, I finished for her. She might as well have been licking blood off the floor—or another man.

"But ...you thought that was a kiss?" she asked. "All I remember is the blood."

I met her eyes. "Why would I have shared it?" I asked honestly.

"Oh," she said, every bit as articulate as I had been. "So ...I didn't kiss you, but you sort of kissed me?"

I nodded. "That's a fair description of it," I said. And if I never got to do it again, the universe would have to die. At that moment, I was distractedly certain that that was the real matter behind unified force theory.

"I'm sorry, Edward," she's been saying. "That... really meant a lot to you, didn't it?" I'd heard her ask. I couldn't remember if I'd had my eyes closed or just been staring at the wall. I'd tipped my head to the side, not wanting to answer yes or no. I couldn't even shrug properly these days.

Bella had been silent for a moment. I heard her breathe in to speak.

"I said _that_ wasn't a kiss," she'd told me.

I almost failed to notice when she slid her chair to the side, placing a hand on my upper arm, leaning toward me as the other found the side of my face. I opened my eyes just in time to realize what was happening. I caught her lips and slid my arm around her waist. And then the whole world _went away_. The past didn't matter. Volterra didn't matter. We might as well have been standing beneath a Sitka spruce beside an empty stretch of Highway 101. Lord knew I'd never been able to smell pine needles or gasoline or anything but her when she was near me.

And this time there was no pain. Not any.

I pulled back and rested my forehead against hers, running the pad of my thumb over her lips and down to the corner of her jaw. How many times had I wanted to do that? I'd been so worried that I'd hurt her.

Well it wasn't possible now. There was no way that I could harm her more than I already had.

I leaned back and looked in her eyes, amber-dark eyes, alive with fear and hope and caution.

_Damage done_, I thought. I'd earn her trust again, if it took me a hundred years.

I couldn't _wait_.

"Do you know the difference now?" she asked, a curving smile coloring her words.

"Yes, Miss Swan," I answered obediently. "I believe I do."

Bella eventually had to take her shift in the library. I spent a tense day watching Jane. I developed the habit of always being on the same floor but out of her line of sight. Fortunately, the compound had more than one set of stairs—Marcus had insisted upon it for tactical reasons.

On the second day, Jane had an argument with Alec. He'd been patronizing her, she said. It was true; Alec had taken to speaking to her as if she were a mental patient or a small child. It would have annoyed anyone. I watched her thoughts carefully, wondering if I should try to interfere or just use this opportunity to study Jane as she went off. In the end, I drew closer, letting my footfall make a noise. Alec's eyes flickered to me for half a second. Jane, turned away from me and very agitated, did not notice. _No_, he thought. I nodded and backed away. The rest of the day passed without incident.

On the third day, she came upon Corin and Felix near the entrance to the tower, shouting at them to leave the wives alone. She knew they hadn't truly done anything, but they irritated her beyond measure. They left, as cowed as two alley dogs, but Felix became angry as soon as they'd gone, at Jane, at himself for backing down. He contemplated finding me for a good beating, but Byron crossed his path first. Felix thrashed him soundly outside of reception, breaking his right arm in three places. I would learn about it later, from Renata. Jane's illness was spreading.

On the fourth day, Bella cornered me in the stairwell and, smiling and without a word, quickly kissed me twice on each cheek and three times on the forehead. I found myself returning her caresses eagerly. I had no idea how she could be so happy when the coven was falling apart around us, but it was impossible not to be affected by her. I could barely concentrate on Jane—or anything else—for the rest of the day.

On the fifth day, I realized that Jane hadn't figured out that I was watching her—and probably would not. She took her agitation out on the walls, leaving finger-width marks in the stone. I arranged for them to be filled in and rubbed away. No evidence, not even in our own home.

The tension in the coven was rising. It had been days since Jane had laid a claw on anyone, but no one thought that the danger was over. She strode through the upper halls, half-muttering to herself, formerly neat hair flying from her head in clumps. Everyone was waiting for the next awful thing to happen.

On the sixth day, it did.

I stood up from my place at our table, letting my book slide shut as I did.

"Jane?" Bella asked apprehensively.

I shook my head. "Heidi's home."

Bella licked her lips. I was glad I couldn't see her thoughts. "But she's early," she said.

"She's showing off," I realized. Heidi was proving to all the sneering voices that she had lost none of her skill and would surrender none of her rank. I should have anticipated this, but both Bella and my work with Jane had distracted me. I should have moved up our own schedule, just in case.

There had been nine feasts since our arrival in Volterra. The guard ate roughly once a month, at varied intervals to make the pattern harder to recognize. Like clockwork, though, they occurred eight days after Heidi left on her fishing trip. I always made sure that Bella and I ate first. Full and fortified, we would hole up in the library and tried not to think about what was happening.

This time, she'd done it in six.

I could see, scattered in her smug thoughts, that she'd brought home a few gems, unusually sweet-smelling. Sometimes, on feeding days, the scent of blood seemed to fill the whole compound.

Aro had never ordered us to participate or even to help prepare. It was one of his holds over me, one of the things he was holding back to use as punishments if I ever defied him—or failed him.

I took Bella's hand, rubbing my thumb against her knuckles, the black of her eyes suddenly seeming bright as onyx in against the gold light. She'd been doing so well, but we both knew that it had less to do with direct control of her thirst and more to do with how carefully she avoided anything that could set her off. She only seemed strong because she knew her weaknesses so well.

"Could you ask him to let us go into the tunnels?" Bella asked quickly, the black of her eyes bright as polished onyx. I could see her chin flex as her tongue remembered the dryness in her mouth. "Far, not like we do for practice."

"No," I said. The sea of thoughts in this building was suddenly roiling. The dozens of humans whom Heidi had herded into the reception hall were beginning to realize that something was wrong. The human staff were beginning to realize that they'd come to work on a bad day. And all that was nothing to the bright red strains of memory and anticipation firing out from every vampire in the compound as the word of Heidi's return spread.

"Edward, he'd understand," she said.

"He would," I agreed. "I mean that I can't ask him." I watched the corners of her mouth turn down as she realized what I meant. She looked at me for a long moment. Downstairs, Aro was lifting his hands in his familiar gesture of delight at Heidi's news. Caius was ordering Afton to take crowd control duties. Master Marcus... Marcus never seemed bored on feeding days. And underlying all that...

_Didn't see this place on the tour schedule..._

_ Why did he close the door behind us?_

_ There's no air in here._

_ Something's not right._

Bella seemed calm, stray threads of her hair drifting in the still air, but I could see the little tremor in the middle of her lower lip. I didn't have to be able to read her thoughts. She'd made two kills in the past nine months, both women, both scared. She'd pulled that fear inside her that day.

"The roof," she said quickly.

"Bella, it's too early. The sun is still—"

"_The roof_," she insisted, heading for the door. She was across the hallway and at the stairwell when I caught up with her. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back toward me, locking my arms around her chest.

"_No_," I said against her neck.

_Should probably go back the way we came._

_ Where's Maurice? He was right with me._

_ What's wrong with his eyes?_ I blinked to clear Caius's looming face from my mind. We didn't have long now.

"If we go out there during the day, we are _dead_," I hissed in her ear.

"We've got cloaks." Her words were like pebbles pouring out of a jar, clattering in all directions, "And we can't get down, and, and we're high up, no one will see."

"_No_," I insisted. "Caius will know. We'd be _dead_." She was struggling, but only a little, fingers like steel against my forearm. She was still stronger than I was, but not by so much as she had been.

"I don't want to do it!" her voice rose and broke against my grip, like a crashing wave, like a sob.

"I don't either," I said. "But _not_ the roof."

Her chest rose and fell. "Water," she said.

Water? If that worked, we never would have let Jasper outside without a quart of Evian in his hand. "Bella, that won't—"

"No, _water_. Base of the tower." She slipped out of my hold and ran in the other direction. I followed her down one floor from the tower roof access and across the upper hallway.

_My dear ones, is everyone here?_ Aro was preparing to say. No... No, thank God but Adrienne had stopped to leave her good blouse behind, and Randall and Corin had been going over the books with the accountants when Heidi had come home. Too many people who hadn't been expecting her. We had a minute, if only just.

Bella turned and I nearly overshot her. For a moment it looked as if she'd been going back to the upper library, but she bounded up the stairs again.

The tower? That made no sense. She knew I couldn't go up there, and even if I could, the ventilation system would only bring in tainted air from the lower levels.

Bella shoved open the door and I followed her out onto the pale white tiles. Someone had fixed the mirror, I saw. I hadn't been in here since that night when I'd given her the comb for her hair. When I'd needed to shower, I'd gone downstairs like everyone else. But downstairs was about to be full of the scent of human blood.

"Why here?" I asked, genuinely confused. Bella actually seemed calmer, like we were close to safe.

"We should stop breathing," she said.

I stared at her. I knew she was right, but that didn't explain any of it. I squeezed my eyes shut. Three floors below us, the tension was building like a rising wave of suspicion and anticipation and—

_Guests! Welcome to Volterra!_

Then everything crashed. Thoughts were still thoughts when they became screams.

It must have shown on my face. Bella took two steps toward me and put her hands on either side of my face. I could hear the damned hiss of the air vents over our heads. I could hear every hungry, ripping, terrified, satisfied wetly tearing mind in the feasting hall three floors below us.

One Swiss tourist, a boy of sixteen, saw what I barely recognized as Richard pull his big brother's linebacker shoulder from his neck and clamp down on the spurting fountain of an artery while Renata sucked at his wrist like a lemon. It had to be a trick, the boy thought. It had to be one of Anthony's pranks. It had to be. Then the boy felt something cold snap down on his neck and something warm spread in front of his pants.

They were all shouting, ringing, screaming into my ears. Thought. Pain. Memory. Fear.

I could feel every minute that had passed since I'd eaten. Every second was like sand inside my eyelids.

Even three floors up, every molecule of air smelled _just. Like. Food._

I was two steps closer to the door than I had been. "Edward, look at me," someone was saying. It would all be gone. There were dozens of vampires down there and I didn't want any but none of them would leave any for me.

I felt the metal of the door handle against my palm. "I need you to help me, Edward."

There was a tiny rush of air as someone exhaled through her nose, and my arm was stuck in a grip like a vise. "This way," she murmured, "this way." I saw her knock her cloak off her shoulders, let it pile in smooth gray ridges on the tiles. "This way," she said as she stepped out of her shoes. I felt more pressure on my arm and instinctively tried to pull back. I saw her lips press together as she braced her legs and pulled with more strength than I'd ever known she had. The next thing I knew, she was pile-driving me toward the closed stall.

There was a gentle squeaking of metal on metal and then a thousand drumbeat raindrops hit me square in the face.

I opened my eyes, still under the rushing stream. Like smoke, I thought bemusedly. I remembered being taught in a hundred different required safety courses, that if I were trapped in a burning building, I should wet a cloth and hide under a table to keep out the smoke.

"Better now?" Bella called over the spray.

I nodded, blinking through the droplets on my eyelashes. Some scents carried further on moisture, but this was no forest fog. The water was coming to us unexposed.

She smiled, showing white teeth as her dark hair plastered against her neck. There really wasn't room in here for the both of us. I had no intention of moving.

"What gave you this idea?" I asked over the spray. White noise. It was helping. It would be hell to explain what had happened to our clothes, but it was better than the alternative.

"I'm good at coming up with plans," Bella said, pulling herself into a kneeling position. "Not much else to think about what with all the art-cleaning and wife-minding."

I raised an eyebrow. Sexism in Volterra was one of Bella's disfavorite topics. We usually talked on feeding days. About anything except what was happening, if only to give me another voice to latch onto.

I felt better now. I could still hear everything, see everything, but it didn't feel as though it were happening inside me any more.

_AWAY!_ The thought hit me like a chest-high breaker.

"Edward!" Bella called out,.

Blood and anger and dominion and _aaah!_

I gasped, pulling water into my lungs. Holy... Was that actually...

"Edward?"

"It's a fight downstairs, Bella," I said. Fighting wasn't unheard of on feeding days. Everyone loosened their control a bit, but there were few things that people were not supposed to do. "Jane just used her gift on three of the guard," I said to Bella, "just to get more food." I shook my head. "It's coming undone, Bella. Aro will have to punish her now."

"What do you think he'll do?"

"I don't know," I breathed. "I don't know."

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One: I am a little annoyed that _Castle_ stole my idea, but at least I got it on record first. I'm hardly surprised that they're mining ffnet for plotlines, really (because a WWIII based heavily on China is totally my own and no one else could have thought of it, ever).

Two: To address some confusion, Bella has the exact same supernatural powers as she does in canon (_Breaking Dawn_). She just doesn't have an vampire Amazon to help her figure out how to use it.

Three: This isn't an AU. It's a deviation 'fic. AU is when the circumstances of the story are different from the beginning, like in _Wide Awake_ or even _Bonne Foi _(both delightful, by the way).

As for this chapter... Like I said, I'm still accepting concrit. If anyone out there has any ideas for how I can make the exchange in the upper library anything more like that KY Intense commercial where that British couple is talking about putting cinnamon in the desert, please let me know.

This is my first use of the semi-canon character Corin. His name is on the list of Volturi provided at the end of _Breaking Dawn_, but he has no lines. I've never read any of the supplemental materials, so I'm just guessing as to his personality and the circumstances under which he became Volturi.

drf24 (at) columbia (dot) edu


	36. Ch 35 Memory

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

So I read _The Hunger Games_ and just recently saw the movie (not quite up to the hype but still pretty darn good). A lot of people compare it to _Twilight_ but they're two very different kinds of stories with very different goals. _HG _is superior to the Twibooks in almost all technical respects, especially pacing. Its major structural flaw is that _HG_ has a bit of a half-assed ending and the Twibooks resolve. Note the words "technical" and "structural." As art, _HG_ is more in harmony with itself than Twi, but it doesn't have the undefinable vibe that keeps us coming back to Bella and her buds. In _HG_, the love story is an appendage to the main plot _because that is what works for it_. Two notes to parents, though: 1) This is not a children's book. 2) Both book and movie will still be good when your ten-year-old turns thirteen.

If Twilight is chocolate cake, then Hunger Games is pizza. They were never meant to satisfy the same cravings.

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"He's rotten for you," –Charlie, _New Moon_

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"Your report, Edward," commanded Aro. Caius sat impassively in the throne to his right. Marcus was on their left, looking slightly less bored than usual.

"Jane trapped Corin outside the art gallery this morning, Masters," I reported. They'd been alone. No one to help him. Aro and Marcus had covered for Jane after the last feast—fights were not unusual, after all—but the fact of the matter was that one of the guard had used her gift to harm others, and that was not lost on anyone in the compound. Even our humans were thinking about it. Guiseppe and Davide had engaged in eight minutes of whispered speculation in a bar after work. Aro had learned of it in my thoughts. An example was planned.

Jane had spent three days in the lower levels, assigned to dull tasks. During that time, she had had no direct contact with anyone but Alec, and it seemed as though she might have grown better, but then this morning...

It was a small meeting. I had been allowed the dignity of a single-knee genuflection as I spoke. Aro could have taken my report from my thoughts—and fully intended to do so. This was for the benefit of those listening. Demetri, Felix, Alec and Chelsea watched from the edges of the room. A council of the inner circle, minus its cornerstone. They stood behind me, though, rather than between me and their beloved master. If I was still a captive beast, my fangs had long since been pulled.

"Did she injure him?" asked Caius, though he already knew the answer.

"Yes, Master Caius." While he'd been down, she'd ripped open his shirt and tried to flay his back open to the spine. It had taken Adrienne and me hours of work to put him back together. Rolfe had hovered behind us until we were through. Then he and Adrienne had left together. She'd looked like a sparrow that had found the last tall oak in a stormy world. He'd smiled like a smug, smug fool.

"What was the provocation?" asked Aro. Again, he already knew the answer.

"None, Master." Corin hadn't even looked at her. She'd gone from zero to sixty.

Alec was a revelation today. His thoughts had never been so eerily bland as his sister's, but today they were tumbling over each other like hot tears. Something about that brought about a pang inside me. Something about that made me want to help.

"And what have you heard Edward?" asked Aro. "What does your gift tell you?"

Demetri's thoughts tightened, like water crystalizing into glass-clear ice. My gift still intrigued him; it had since our first mission together.

"Jane's thoughts—" I hesitated, keenly aware of her brother, listening to my every word. "Before the current troubles, Jane's thoughts were ...unusual," I said carefully.

"Speak plainly," ordered Caius.

"Stunted," I said. "Her mind was colorless and simple, like a plant kept out of the light." More like a goblin summoned by a magician. She'd thought only of serving her master and of humiliating her victims.

"And that has changed?" asked Aro. Was it my imagination or did his clouded eyes look past me, to one of the vampires waiting over my shoulder? Chelsea seemed to think he was looking at her, thready, anxious thoughts twisting like twine into fear of his displeasure.

"Yes, Masters, it has," I said. "If anything, she's more—" _more human_ "...more normal."

Caius gave me a hard stare—a feat considering his limited vision.

Behind me, I heard Demetri's cloak rustle as he shifted his position. He'd felt a change in the scent of Jane's mental essence over these past weeks, though he couldn't hear specific thoughts the way I could. He was eager to hear his suspicions confirmed.

"Jane's mind is scattered," I said. "She has lost her focus, but what thoughts she has are ...vibrant," I said for lack of a better word. I felt my brow crease.

"Edward," Aro prompted.

"It reminds me of something, Masters," I said, feeling genuinely apologetic. "I can't tell what it is, but this change in her reminds me of something I read or heard, long ago."

Aro's eyes narrowed. _Something he made himself forget?_ he asked himself. For some reason, he found that interesting, blindingly interesting, but I sensed somehow that it did not have anything directly to do with Jane. Strange.

"Do you suppose, Edward," said Caius, leaning forward on his throne, "that Jane's actions are the result of overstimulation?"

"That may be," I offered. "Things that never irritated her before are striking her now as if they were new—she often thinks of being overcrowded. Her thoughts rail against the noise of the city."

Caius and Aro exchanged a look. _My wife did suggest sending her away for a time. To someplace quiet,_ Aro thought. _She usually turns out to know best in these matters_. In his mind, Sulpicia's desiccated image was superimposed with flowing blond hair, supple limbs and a demure smile. Memory could be a wonderful thing.

_But then..._ Aro imagined Jane in a house far out in the country. But if he sent her with guards, she might attack them. If he sent her without guards, she might run off, become absorbed into another coven, become vulnerable to Aro's enemies.

"Jane has done us many services over the years," Aro said carefully.

_And made many enemies_, I finished for him. Yes, there were those who would wish Jane harm for her own sake. Once word of her location got out—and it would—she would be targeted.

"Her safety is paramount," Aro finished. Behind me, I could hear Alec's mind twist in relief, grateful for the way his master reciprocated his sister's devotion. It was unnerving. At least it wasn't completely based on fiction; I wasn't Jasper, but Aro really did seem concerned about Jane. His thoughts were crackling with flamelike images of her in harm, surrounded by distressed words, memories of her years of constant, houndlike reliability projected across them like a hopeful wish.

My master's eyes fell on me, hard as stones behind their gray sheen.

_He could have done more,_ Aro thought harshly, remembering a thousand such hypothetical puzzles I'd solved with Carlisle. _Is it that he's never had a live subject before?_ he wondered. _Or is it that he did not give the matter his full concentration?_

Jane hadn't been my _only_ occupation these past few weeks. It had been some time since Aro had touched my thoughts, but being back in Bella's good opinion had its share of distractions.

"Perhaps you should try to be more focused, Edward," said Aro. "Perhaps—"

Marcus shifted in his seat and laid a fingertip on Aro's arm just as he very vividly imagined smacking him in the back of the head. I jumped. Aro stopped talking. I'd never seen anyone cut Aro off before.

_What was that?_ Aro asked me just as Marcus was thinking, _NO, Brother_.

I managed to tuck away a smile. I wasn't the only one who was pleased that Bella had given me another chance. Marcus wanted to see the intense thrumming of our bond again, and I had no objection.

"I will be diligent, Masters," I promised, hopefully preventing a scene. "I know my duty."

_I'll bet he does,_ Caius thought, adding a raised eyebrow that would've made Rolfe proud. I managed not to roll my eyes. Now was not the time. Only a few people had, like Rolfe and Demetri, figured out that Bella and I had ever been an act. Caius seemed to be under the impression that she'd become my mate in every sense of the term. To correct him would have been to suggest that it could possibly have been his business.

"Edward," Aro raised his voice just a bit. I snapped back to attention.

"Why not a temporary removal, Masters?" I asked. Aro's eyes twitched. He didn't understand what I meant. How to say it while allowing everyone to save face?

_That is all you have for me?_ Aro thought darkly. I resisted the urge to cringe. I had disappointed him, and he did not like to be disappointed. Sending Jane away would put her and the Volturi's reputation in danger. Allowing her to stay here would be little better.

But Jane left the compound all the time—or she had—for missions. "Give her a mission, Masters," I said. "Something simple, something where we could send guards with her for her protection."

Caius seemed appreciative of the idea. "Perhaps a more ...direct matter than tending newborns would clear her mind," he said.

"It would allow her an outlet for some of her energy," Aro supplied.

_And there would be fewer distractions for those who have the charge of her,_ Aro thought sharply. I could see Chelsea, shamefaced, reflected in his mind.

I blinked. Aro did not often let me see his thoughts of Chelsea. He hid them from me. He must actually have been worried about Jane to let something slip like this.

"I will consult the library staff," Caius said. "Something in Italy, even if it is only a minor matter."

Aro was nodding in agreement. "Edward, you will meet me there this evening." To help him sort through the Italian news and to give him the unabridged version of my report.

"Yes, sir," I said. I hesitated, "Masters, there is more."

Caius raised an eyebrow. Aro's expression did not change, but there was a bright sliver of hope, quickly extinguished. _If it were an answer, he would have given it already,_ he thought to himself. _It cannot be good news_.

_It isn't,_ I thought to myself. _But it is what you brought me here to tell you_.

"You must punish her, Masters," I said. I was suddenly acutely aware of the four minds behind me. Felix was annoyed that I presumed to tell the masters what to do. Alec was protective of his sister but resigned. Demetri, as always, was interested.

"This would calm her mind?" Caius asked scathingly.

I met Aro's eyes. "I told you once," I said, "that so long as I served you, you would never mistake the crowd." I could feel Demetri's ice-clear eyes on the back of my head, thoughts wordless and perceptive. "The rest of the coven needs to see her punished."

Aro's eyes snapped onto mine. _Edward, do you mean to say that the guard begins to doubt our leadership?_

I nodded. Some of the guard had viewed Jane's banishment to the lower levels as a punishment, but none of them thought it fitting treatment for a member of the coven who'd attacked her covenmates unprovoked. No one had yet questioned Aro's decision out loud, but it was coming.

Aro seemed to sit back in his chair. He stared at me for a long moment.

_Say no more of this for now._

I nodded again, a tiny, hair's-breadth motion. Aro would want more details, a complete and nuanced cataloguing of the problem and proposed solution. I would give it to him later, alone.

Felix thought the master's silence was odd but he was used to the masters behaving strangely. Alec was too worried about Jane's condition to notice. Demetri, razor-sharp Demetri, he had figured out exactly what was happening.

Behind me, Chelsea was still mentally gnawing her lips. I almost felt pity. Surely Chelsea was already doing everything she could, tightening Jane's bond to the rest of the coven, cutting out anything that could interfere with...

My gaze fell to the old bloodstains on the tiles.

"Edward?" asked Demetri. In his thoughts, I could see the change in my posture. Aro held up his hand and Demetri fell silent.

Cutting...

It was like a whirlpool. Every clue was spinning in my mind, rising up so that I could see all the way to the shells on the ocean floor. I met Aro's eyes.

"I know what Jane reminds me of," I said carefully.

Alec's young face turned my way, suspicion and hope knotting his thoughts. I did my best to roll my shoulders so that I would look apologetic from his angle.

Aro was staring at me expectantly. "Well?" said Caius.

"Like a lobotomy patient, but in reverse," I told them.

Felix smacked his two fists together and looked toward Caius for permission. I didn't move an inch. He'd break a few of my fingers, and then it would be over.

Caius looked at Aro, then back to Felix, raising his chin in a silent instruction to wait. Felix lowered his fists, thoughts burning down to a low bubbling.

"A lobotomy is a human medical procedure in which some of the connections within the brain are severed," I said, Aro was nodding impatiently, but Marcus and Demetri both paid attention. "It was common in the early twentieth century. Doctors would perform this procedure on institutionalized mental patients." Carlisle had witnessed the procedure once at a medical school in France. He hadn't been sure what to make of it. "It changed their behavior dramatically and got blown out of proportion, gained a reputation as a miracle procedure, but all it really did was make troublesome inmantes easier to manage. It made them seem calmer from the outside, but it grossly impaired their ability to think. Eventually, lobotomy was reserved only for incurably violent cases."

I could feel Alec staring at me with eyes like barbed wire. Aro's face was grayer than usual, an angry stormcloud. "Surely, Edward," he said, mouth twisting in what I was surprised to see was genuine disgust, "you are not suggesting that we subject Jane to such mutilation."

"No!" I insisted, lifting one hand from its place beside my knee as a flash of terror moved through me. "I meant no such thing, I swear it!" Once he touched my thoughts, he'd believe me, and I would be safe.

Aro eyed me suspiciously but nodded for me to continue.

"Before, she was steady and placid," I explained, "but always a little..." I searched for a diplomatic way to put it.

"Yes, we heard you describe her," said Caius.

_Accurately,_ Demetri noted to himself.

"And now she's unstable but much more alive," I continued. "It's as if someone _undid_ a lobotomy."

Felix shook his head. "Jane's taken a hit or two, but she's never been injured in that way," he volunteered. _Not like you have, whelp_, he thought with a few merry images of my skull cracking like an egg.

Alec nodded. "My sister has become ill, not grown better."

"Alec, what was Jane like as a child?" I asked, turning my head to look him in the eye.

He seemed taken aback, "Why would I know?" he said.

"I thought you were her brother," I said. They did have some physical resemblance, but I realized now that that didn't necessarily mean that they were biologically related. They might have been siblings the way I was with—I twitched—Emmett.

"I am," he answered, "but we remember nothing of those times."

_What was that?_ Demetri wondered, thinking of my brief spasm. _He's spent a lot of time around Jane,_ he mused coldly. Perhaps this was some sickness among gifted vampires. If Jane went, and then I went, then he would not be far behind. The prospect did not seem to frighten so much as displease him.

"Lobotomy," Alec scoffed, but it was halfhearted.

Demetri stared hard into the empty space in front of him. Something about what I'd said had stirred his thoughts, and he didn't know what to do with them yet. _You had better stay away from Alec,_ he thought in my direction. _Give him time to calm down._

"And does this parallel alter your recommendation in any way, Edward?" asked Marcus.

"Yes," I said confidently. I'd been planning to say it anyway, but there would never be a better time. "We should send for my father," I told the masters.

Aro's thoughts lashed with the implications of my suggestion. Calling for help meant admitting publicly that there was a problem. Calling Carlisle for help meant owing a favor to a man he'd wronged. Aro didn't often let his ego get in the way of his goals, but that didn't mean he didn't have one.

"Apart from yourselves, he knows more about our kind than anyone alive," I said. I had no idea if it was literally true, but he was certainly the most knowledgeable person who'd be willing to help the Volturi with a weak spot and trustworthy enough not to speak of it once he'd left. "If rumors would be a problem, then it wouldn't have to be an official request," I said. "You could even do what you did the last time."

I felt Demetri's eyes flick from Aro's scowl to the back of my head and back. _Last time?_ Oh I'd be paying for that one. Aro had made it clear to me that Demetri and Alec were welcome to any secrets I might have dredged up about Jane, but it seemed that weren't entirely in the know with respect to what had happened with Carlisle early this past summer.

"You could invite Carlisle for a social visit," I offered. "No one but the two of you would have to know what you really wanted to discuss."

_But the guard would know_, Aro meant the words for me this time. _I do not bring fools into the fold._ _They would know if Carlisle's involvement resolved the trouble with Jane. They would expect me to be grateful._ Worse, some of _them_ might be grateful, and that might make them reluctant if the Cullen coven were ever to come in conflict with the Volturi.

From a Cullen perspective, it was a no-lose scenario. But Aro was my master now.

"You could always say I figured it out. Or that you did." I offered. "I'm sure we could come up with something reasonably convincing."

Behind me, Demetri was shaking his head. "The masters cannot start lying to the guard, Edward," he said to me. "We must be able to trust them. Even if no one truly figured it out, we would all sense that something was wrong. It would do harm."

I was glad that my face was turned away. I wasn't nearly good enough to hide my emotions. I only hoped that Chelsea was doing the same.

"Have you nothing else to say to us, Edward?" asked Marcus.

I watched him carefully. I had been expecting the question, but I hadn't been expecting it from him. _I would like to see Carlisle again. He ran off so quickly last time..._ Marcus's thoughts trialed away. He was up to something, though. He was up to something and he was very rusty at it.

I shook my head. "No, Masters," I answered. "I await your decision, as in all things."

"My dear ones, you may go," Aro said, nodding to Demetri, Felix and me. "We wish to speak with Chelsea a while longer." _Wait nearby, Edward,_ he instructed. He planned to call for me, I saw, but he wanted to be sure of something first.

Behind me, Chelsea's thoughts twisted like a dishcloth, the mental equivalent of wriging her hands. I rose and left with the others, not looking at her. I couldn't see what Aro wanted to talk to her about, but I could guess that they wanted Chelsea to start using her gift on Jane. I managed not to shudder and thanked any God that might exist that I'd caught her when she'd tried to do that to me. I loved Carlisle, Esme, Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper as much as I ever had, and I didn't want to think about what I might have become if Volterra had managed to take that away from me.

Alec muttered something to Demetri as the four of us left the audience chamber. I saw the hatchet-faced man shake his head as they walked away. As ordered, I lingered outside.

She was waiting for me.

"How'd it go?" she asked, a touch of emotion in her voice, as she moved toward me like a rippling shadow.

I smiled. "Concerned about Jane?" I asked playfully. Of course she was concerned about Jane. Bella was always concerned about dangerous creatures who didn't deserve her good opinion.

"Concerned about _you_," she said with just touch of playfulness shaking on top of her nerves, "all alone in that room with Felix."

"Alec, Demetri and Chelsea were there too," I said. "And the masters."

"That's worse, not better," she told me.

"Things aren't as bad as they were, Bella," I said. "They don't think of me entirely as an outsider any more. I could swear that Alec was almost grateful."

"Grateful? What for?"

"From his perspective, his sister is ill and I'm helping to make her well," I told her. She looked confused, so I added, "He loves her."

Bella seemed to accept this at face value. Sometimes, I thought she preferred thinking of our fellow Volturi as caricature villains. I only hoped she didn't do anything foolish before she came around and saw that most of them had their redeeming qualities. Renata seemed to have won her over, and maybe Rolfe. She was certainly protective enough of Caroly and Marcell.

"Do you know what they're going to do?" she asked me. "Will they let him come?"

I licked my lips and gave her the Cliffs notes version of my meeting with the masters. She already knew most of the things I'd told them. In Volterra, a man was not expected to keep secrets from his mate unless so ordered, and I had not been ordered.

"What?" she asked. "What's wrong."

"It's—" I realized that I was breathing hard. I made myself stop. I could do this. I could do this. I loved her enough to do this. I could get the words out.

"Edward?" her hands were on either side of my face. Did she have to feel that good?

I gritted my teeth. I'd botched this last time, but at least I'd learned from the mistake. No lies. No tricks this time. "If Carlisle comes, I want you to leave with him," I blurted.

"No," she said.

"Bella... You're nearing your year mark, and Aro's starting to figure out that he has other ways of controlling me—"

"_No._" The word left her in a feral hiss that traveled through the air, her hands, the rocks of the earth all the way to my bones.

"This place is rotten for you, Bella," I said. "I can make it here, barely, but I don't think you can. Aro will only indulge you so much longer."

"Only if you come with me," she said.

"That's not how it works."

She put her hands on my arms, and my purpose seemed clearer than ever. She had to go to Carlisle where she would be safe. "Edward I am not going anywhere without you, " she said. "I'm not leaving you here by yourself."

"I won't be by myself," I said lamely. "I'm practically one of the coven now. They'll look out for me."

"_They can't have you_," she snarled, and for a second, she looked like the newborn that she truly was, violent and unpredictable Then her neck snapped back, as if she'd said something she hadn't meant to. "They can't have you," she repeated, closer to calm. She wasn't being rational.

I shook free of her grip, put one hand to the side of her face. I didn't want her to stay, not with my head, for all that the rest of me had other opinions. "They _do_ have me, Bella," I said firmly. I did not often speak of my bondage, but the seriousness of the situation merited it. "And they have you too—for the moment. I won't be any less a prisoner if you stay here with me."

Bella looked away, but I didn't let her go.

"I don't want to be without you," I admitted. "I don't. But if it's one of us getting away or nothing, then I want you to get away."

She tossed her head, moving away from my hand. "Carlisle might not come anyway," she said. "No need to argue about it when it might be nothing."

I let my hand fall. We really should have been planning for her year mark. If the two of us put her heads together, we could come up with a convincing scenario of some kind, a way for the masters to let her go without seeming weak. I knew my own limits, though. I didn't want her to go away where I wouldn't see her for centuries. I knew I wasn't strong enough to help her get away unless she was willing to work with me. I'd done it once and it had nearly killed me.

And... I'd been exaggerating a little. Aro might be losing patience with Bella's willfulness, but the guard wasn't. She was growing on them. Her refusal to leave me had got her respect. I was still the cultish newcomer, but she was the cultish newcomer's faithful mate who did her duty in the field and was unafraid of the newborns at home. In what passed for vampire culture, she was all that was good and admirable.

I frowned at the network of tiny braids holding her hair in place. "Did you do that?" I asked, hoping that my disapproval didn't show. The wives were permitted their period hairstyles, but the rest of us were encouraged to blend in with the human population of Volterra, cloaks aside.

"Um, Renata and Caroly got a little bored," she said.

Renata had a reputation as Athenodora's hairdresser. She must have been talented indeed; I only had secondhand images of the wives, and they didn't have much hair to work with. The ordered nest on Bella's head was probably what that style was supposed to look like. "Are you sure it's safe?" I asked. I didn't like the thought of clawlike newborn fingers that close to Bella's throat and neck.

"She seems all right," Bella answered, eyes casting downward toward her hands. I knew what she meant. Caroly was doing better than Marcell these days. It was still too soon to tell whether her human talents would blossom into a gift, but Renata and Bella were taking her on short, supervised walks around the compound and busying her mind with repetive tasks. I smiled, remembering Emmett and Rosalie as newborns. We might be able to start Caroly on library shifts soon.

"Things are falling apart here," I breathed.

"Is that so bad?" she asked. I must have looked shocked, because she hurried on, "I mean we have Marcell and Caroly now. What does it matter if a few people go? We can replace them. Besides, you said that once Caius has his calm newborns, he won't mind letting the rest of the guard go."

I'd been joking of course, but there was something to it. "Caius might not," I admitted. But Aro loved his collection, his gifted servants. He might let common fighters like Richard and Adrienne leave without much regret, but he'd feel the loss of Chelsea or Demetri—or even Rolfe at this point.

"But wouldn't it be enough for them to save face?" she asked. "The ones who want to leave aren't like us. They joined because they wanted to."

I didn't correct her. We _hadn't_ wanted to. That was no secret.

"If Aro told them to say that they were leaving only because they'd done their jobs forever and were glad to hand them over to the Volturi's new and improved recipe?" Bella prompted. "Wouldn't they do it?"

I paused. She had a point. They would say it if their beloved master asked them to. I didn't dare say it out loud, but if Chelsea worked skillfully enough, they might even be made to _think _it.

I smiled sadly. It was all a pipe dream, at least until Aro chose a candidate for the next experiment. I had no idea what had made Bella so calm. It could have been anything from her essential kindness to the fact that she'd used to faint at the sight of blood.

She touched the side of my face with her hand. "Don't look so sad," she said. "It will happen."

I closed my eyes for a moment, "Eternity is a long time," I admitted. Aro might let us go, but it would not be soon. We would not be able to go back to Forks, her parents or my family as if we'd never left.

When I opened my eyes again, she was smiling. I did too. I couldn't help it. Deep down, I was glad that she didn't want to leave me—glowing, ecstatic, gratified and thrilled that she did not want to leave me. I felt that the two of us were more in synch with each day that passed. One day I would know her so well that I would not care that I couldn't read her thoughts.

I looked toward the audience chamber doors before they opened, echoing hollowly as they did. Chelsea stood there, alone. Her smooth face trembled as she met my eyes, suggesting the mottled skin of a woman who'd been weeping. I looked behind her, where Aro sat like a granite obelisk, ominous as a god with a thunderbolt in hand.

"They want you," Bella breathed.

I nodded.

Chelsea seemed relieved not to have to speak to me. I headed past her into the audience chamber and she disappeared. Bella would wait for me. She always waited for me.

I walked steadily toward the center of the room. As I dropped to one knee, I wondered what the three of them had done to Chelsea that had upset her so much. I wasn't used to feeling sorry for the wretched woman. I found it a little unnerving, like picking up a left-handed pair of scissors with my right.

"How may I serve you, Masters?" I asked.

Silence followed. Caius looked from Marcus to Aro and back. _This is a bad idea,_ he thought to himself. _We don't need a psychic to tell us when one of our own has failed._ I felt a sharp, heavy chill between my shoulder blades. What were they going to do to me? Jane was not available, but that didn't mean they couldn't give me absolute hell.

The hard line of Aro's mouth wavered. I'd never seen indecision on him before. After months of serving a man of seemingly unfailing self-control, seeing weakness in him bothered me. A strong Aro had become part of my foundation.

_It is a miracle he doesn't already know,_ Aro finally decided to himself. _No matter if he finds out sooner rather than later_.

"Find out what, Master?" I asked cautiously.

Aro's fingers flexed on the arms of his chair as his gaze turned to the left.

"Look into Chelsea," he told me at last.

"Chelsea," I repeated. I felt my body lighten as I put it together. I wasn't the one who'd failed them—Chelsea was. Then I gained enough clarity to wonder what else might be going on.

Aro liked me to stay away from Chelsea; he had ever since that first confrontation in the library. Frankly, that was one wish I had no trouble respecting. I loathed the repulsive maggot of a woman.

"Chelsea has ...helped Jane in the past," he admitted, thoughts flickering with cobwebbed images of Chelsea touching the warped strings of Jane's attachments.

"And you wish me to supervise as she does so again?" I asked. That made no sense. Aro could simply convey his wishes to Chelsea himself.

"I want you to find out why it no longer works," Aro told me.

_Lobotomy in reverse_. The words went through my mind like rivers of ice. Jane wasn't just a stunted seedling. She'd been cut back.

"Jane was always like this," I realized out loud. "She was _always_ unstable." They'd had Chelsea do her work on her and she had, going far deeper than she'd dared with anyone else in the guard. But Jane had been sent out into the world to do the masters' will... No, no they could still have done it, either by sending Chelsea with her or by making sure she did not stay away too long.

"Yes," Aro said.

_Alec was able to manage on his own but Jane never could_, he thought to me. _I don't know if she was too young, or..._

"Without Chelsea," Marcus began, "Jane would never have become a force for good in this world. She may have even been a wildling, to be hunted and killed by our own guard."

"Does she know?" I asked, still incredulous. I couldn't imagine someone taking that much damage to their mind and not noticing.

"Jane?" asked Marcus. I nodded.

"We have never told her," said Aro. _She does not need to know. And it is not for you to judge, Edward,_ he thought sternly, but there was something furtive about him, something he was trying to conceal from me.

I nodded again. My duty. "What would I be looking for, Masters?" I asked. It was unlikely that they knew, but I had to be thorough. I didn't want to be the one who'd failed the next time I stood before them.

"Anything in Jane or Chelsea that might have caused this," spat Caius, looking away pensively. I nodded again. It wasn't for me to judge what they did to Jane. This wasn't the mindset of the modern age that I'd learned at Carlisle's elbow, where a patient's wishes were paramount. To these men, Jane was theirs, not a slave, but _theirs_, and, in their way, they were acting for her benefit.

Aro even looked upset, gray as granite. I watched him as he looked at me carefully, almost as if he were afraid of what I'd see. Again, there were memories of Jane, memories of Chelsea—

And of me.

I must have given some sign, let my eyes widen or my posture change.  
Aro tried to hide it, but it was too late. I saw it flickering like a fish in the upper waters of his mind and I saw it clear enough to count every scale before it darted into the dark, out of view.

My whole body turned to stone. The world suddenly seemed glassy. It was still there, but I couldn't _see_ it any more. I only saw myself in Aro's secondhand view, standing in the library, in the field, the the corridor, lean and proud and arrogant and completely oblivious to Chelsea's hand in the most intimate part of my being. The satisfaction in her thoughts was like a leech sucking at my heart—but at the time, I hadn't felt a thing.

I opened my mouth and drew in stale air. Not me. Not _me_.

I wasn't a fool. I wasn't one of these thoughtless fighters. I was gifted. I was intelligent. I'd caught her in the goddamned act. This couldn't happen to _me_.

I looked straight into Aro's eyes. The film over his irises couldn't block my meaning from him; he didn't miss a thing.

"How long has Chelsea been at me?" I demanded, halfway to a shout. They could punish me if they wished. All they had was Felix, anyway.

Aro had ordered Chelsea to try again, and again, and again, and again. He'd coached her to avoid thinking my name or of my face, anything that would draw my attention. Instead, she'd pictured me as a collection of wires, a knotted, Gordian puzzle to tug and rearrange. It had worked. I'd been completely fooled. I'd had no idea.

Had she been the cause of my epiphany in Zhengzhou? No, Chelsea had not been with us then, and her gift required even a shorter range than mine did, but...

"Calm yourself, Edward," he was saying, raising both hands.

"Chelsea has been in my mind," I accused. "You sent her there. And..." I reexamined the memory I'd seen in Aro's thoughts. Quiet orders, and Chelsea's nod of obedience. "Something to do with Bella. By God, Aro, did you order Chelsea to damage my tie to Bella?" I demanded. In that moment, I knew that if I'd learned that any part of the hell I'd put my lady through could be laid at Aro's feet, I'd have left no two stones sitting atop each other in this compound.

"You forget your place, Edward!" seethed Caius. "You may not speak to us that way."

"He has had a shock, Brother," Aro told him, but his eyes were still on me. "He will remember himself in a moment. As to your question, young Edward," Aro said, stepping toward me with only a little of his usual indulgence. "I ordered nothing of the kind. Why would I?" His movements were slow and deliberate. "I knew you would notice eventually, young Edward," he said, though I could clearly hear him thinking that flattering my intellect would mollify me. "But I must admit, I rather thought it would be Chelsea who let a thought slip. I must be growing careless in my old age."

He was doing no such thing and we both knew it.

"My dear boy, of course Chelsea has been helping you along. How else do you think you can manage to live in one place with so many other vampires? How do you think any of us can?"

"I've lived with other vampires for over eighty years!" I said.

"And I'm sure that has kept your covenmate Jasper very busy," he answered.

"That is not true," I said. "We can live together because we are a family; because we love each other."

"And you cannot pretend that you feel remotely the same way about the rest of the guard, your recent commitment to their well-being notwithstanding," Aro pointed out. "Look at it this way, Edward," he said, lacing his fingers together. "You were in pain. You clearly did not feel at ease with your new circumstances. I had Chelsea give you some medicine to dull the edge of it. Only instead of pills or infusions..." He spread his hands in a mock-innocent shrug.

I pressed one hand to my mouth. What the hell had happened to me? What had I _done_, thinking it was my own idea? Bella's face rose in my mind, smiling and hopeful as she met my eyes between kisses. I felt sick.

"I must say, you gave our dear Chelsea a good bit of trouble," Aro went on. "I had told her to err on the side of caution, but it seemed as though every time she turned her head, there you were again, all your bad habits regrown like weeds. She's never met such a stubborn mind. It's as if her gift slips off you." I could see the metaphor in his mind. I would stay for a while, but then I'd be back as I was.

And now Jane was the same way.

"You're contagious, child," Aro said darkly. "Find me a cure for your disease before my dear Jane succumbs."

"I haven't done anything to Jane, I swear."

"I know." _That is why you are still alive._

"It might have nothing to do with me."

"True," he said. "Then find me another answer. As for your bond with little Bella, though," Aro said, "I wouldn't dream of telling Chelsea to damage it." He laughed, "Marcus would probably punch me in the stomach if I did." Behind him, Marcus nodded affirmatively. "No, no, since your first day here, I have been telling her to strengthen your connection to her. I'm quite afraid that none of your domestic troubles can be laid at Chelsea's door."

I looked up. "What?" I asked.

"I told Chelsea to help you repair your affection for your mate," he said.

Marcus was shaking his head. _He should have just left them alone,_ he thought. Marcus hadn't wanted the two of us to develop just another vampire pair bond, which was all Chelsea knew. _It didn't work anyway._

"Of course," said Aro, "Chelsea didn't quite understand how Bella could already be your mate when she was clearly still human upon her arrival, and I believe she harbored some rather unflattering opinions of the pair of you. Fortunately, she's an obedient girl. But, as always," he held up his hands in a shruglike gesture, "nothing she did seemed to stick."

I focused on his thoughts so hard I was sure he must have felt it. He stared back at me, bland as ever.

Eventually, I looked away. If Aro was lying to me, he was hiding it better than anyone who'd ever lived.

Memory. Memory might save me. Chelsea hadn't been with me in Forks. If I ever felt the same way about her that I had in Forks...

I opened my eyes to find that Aro had stepped toward me, reaching out as if to put a hand on my shoulder. Without meaning to, without thinking, I stepped back. He raised an eyebrow and I stepped back again. Then three more times until finally I turned and fled the room.

"We should not tolerate that, Brother," I heard Caius mutter before the door swung shut. "Forget Jane's illness; send for her anyway. The wounds will teach him if the pain does not."

"Peace, Brother," said Aro. "We had to tell him. Truly, this went as well as any of us could have expected."

I closed my eyes, leaning back against the closed timbers. I breathed in and out through my mouth.

Nothing Chelsea did to me had stayed, they'd said. But she'd been doing it to me _all the time_. How many decisions had I made while under her influence?

There was a set of smooth fingers touching my face, soft, cool breath against my neck. I didn't jump. I didn't even twitch. She didn't feel like a stranger to me any more.

I opened my eyes to see Bella's pale gold looking back at me, alive with concern.

"What did they do now?" she asked solemnly.

I looked away. What was growing between us was still so delicate, like a butterfly. I didn't want to touch it and spoil it before it could fly.

"Edward?"

I shook my head.

"Edward, what did they say to you?"

"I don't know," I told her. It was the truth. Chelsea had used her gift on me but she hadn't? Chelsea had tried to tie me to Bella but it hadn't worked and then it had? I met her eyes again as I grew calmer. I _did_ want her, no matter how I'd gotten that way.

"Yes you do," she murmured, as if she were trying to coax a robin out of a birdhouse. "Just tell me what they said." She was right. I could not keep secrets from her, not if I was ever going to get the future I wanted. She'd been rather vehement about watching my back just a few moments earlier. I might as well let her try.

We didn't talk about it there. By then, the sun had gone down, and we went upstairs to Sulpicia's garden. I'd started to speak, but she'd pulled me down onto the dusty floor of the roof, sitting beside me as I gave her my tale. It helped, the telling. I wanted it out of me. I wanted it all _out_ of me.

"I can't stand the thought of her in my head," I said, staring up at the stars. The cityglow wasn't too bad tonight, and Orion was visible above us. I'd thought myself strong. I'd thought that I could see any attacker coming. "I don't know what disturbs me more, that it happened or that I didn't feel a thing."

Bella stroked my hair. God I loved it when she did that. "It's going to be all right," she said. "Chelsea can't get you."

I closed my eyes. I liked that she wanted to comfort me, but empty words could only do so much. But I still had my manners. "Thank you for saying that," I said.

Bella looked at me strangely, as if she'd expected her words to be more comfort than they were. I mentally chastised myself. She was only trying to make me feel better. I should have acted more grateful.

"It's going to be all right," she said. "I know it is."

I shook my head. "Bella, we can do our best to cope with Volterra, but Aro will tell Chelsea to try again. From what I can tell, she thinks of me as a challenge, her own personal Matter Horn to climb." I exhaled through my nose. "And if she ever does figure out how to get to me, she'll do more than just turn me into the perfect little soldier." In her way, Chelsea was every bit as brutal as Felix. They both liked to take people apart. Chelsea would put me back together as a crippled, limping thing. "She'll do to me what she did to Jane."

"She won't," Bella said, leaning her chin on my shoulder.

I gave a little laugh. She could be calm. She could be calm and confident. _She_ couldn't be touched in this way. I was glad of it, but that didn't mean I couldn't be jealous.

Bella leaned back, looking at me from the side. "You don't believe me," she said.

"I'm trying to be realistic," I said. "It's kind of you to try to make me feel better, but we need to face facts. How could you know that Chelsea won't ever get to me?"

She stopped, as if she'd walked down a hallway only to find a dead end blocking her way.

"I just ...do," she said.

I picked up her closed fist and kissed it. "I hope you're right," I said. There was nothing else to say.

We stayed like that a long time, until I could barely remember her presence beside me, only the knot of dread in my belly.

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So... this one's a bit disjointed. Mostly transitional stuff. But if this were _Lois and Clark_, this is where they'd have broken up again! Actual vampiring coming up.

drf24


	37. Ch 36 Status Quo

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

Alrightie, so this one's a little longer than usual. Strictly length-wise it might've done to cut it into bits, but thematically, it seemed to be all one piece. That being said, it's got it all! Compound politics, love scenes, plot development and plenty of vampiring.

(bows to bmthespian for the typo save)

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"Only thirst. That was the deal, the price. I'd agreed to pay it." –Bella, _Breaking Dawn_

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"I want to talk to you."

Bella and I turned around at the same time. I wasn't surprised to see Demetri. His mental voice was as clear and distinct as the gleam of a sharpened sword. I hadn't expected him to speak to _me_, though, especially not out loud. Especially not about what seemed to be on his mind.

Bella looked from Demetri to me and back. Caroly had worked a thin blue scarf into her hair today, the two ends of it falling past the intricate bun. I found it gave her appearance a certain fragility, but I couldn't deny that the dark blue looked good against her skin.

"Alone," Demetri clarified.

I squeezed Bella's hand. Communicating silently was an incalculable asset in Volterra, and Bella was learning how to do it. She knew I was promising to tell her everything later, and she left without objecting.

Her footsteps faded down the far end of the hallway. I looked Demetri in the eye and waited.

_He hasn't done it. He hasn't done it, and he needs to._

I wouldn't have wanted to give it voice either. Even with Jane out of all practical commission, questioning Aro was a dangerous business. "I know," I said. "I wouldn't have suggested it if I didn't think it was necessary."

"We need to do more than _suggest_ it," he said. "Things are not going well."

_We?_ I wondered.

Jane had cornered Adrienne in the hallway and left six smooth tooth marks on her previously flawless shoulders. Adrienne mourned them like they were her dead sisters.

"Adrienne is going to leave tomorrow night; she's just working up the courage," I said. I wouldn't miss her, but Rolfe would. And once someone had taken the stigma of being first to run away, others would not be far behind.

"We can't afford to lose people," Demetri said. "Not like this." _Our reputation,_ he thought. Thugs like Felix and Corin might believe that it was the Volturi's ability to deal damage that kept our world in line, but Demetri did not. Any coven could attack another and break bones and spirits. The Volturi were like a demon, like a flood, as unstoppable as the coming of night. One chink in our armor and the light would shine right through us.

He was right, of course. I breathed out. "Demetri, what exactly would you have me do?" I asked. "I cannot make the master change his mind."

Aro had not selected a mission for Jane. He was waiting for a mission in Italy, he'd said. The truth was that he was too worried about losing her. Jane was vulnerable in her current state, and that mattered more to him than the fact that she rendered others vulnerable.

Demetri gave me a look like frostbite.

"I think you can."

I stepped toward him and lowered my voice. "He already reads me every day," I reminded him.

"Then show him the crowd again," Demetri instructed.

I closed my eyes. "Demetri, nothing has changed," I told him. "Master Aro understands the difficulties facing the guard, he simply doesn't _wish_ to punish Jane publicly."

_You lie_.

I wondered for an amazed moment whether Chelsea had gone to work on Demetri since I'd seen him last. The tracker had always struck me as completely loyal to the masters and their mission, but he'd also come off as extremely clear-eyed.

I supposed every man had a blind spot.

"Our master is not misinformed," I explained firmly. "He understands the magnitude of the problem and has chosen not to take action."

_Aro is cutting his losses?_ Demetri wondered to himself.

"No," I said bluntly, "he is willfully blinding himself to the consequences of inaction." I found myself irritated. Aro was being a fool, and not just with Jane. In Demetri, he had a devoted servant. He wasted his time trying to turn me loyal when he was squandering the confidence of capable followers who believed in his cause without coercion.

Demetri glared but finally looked away, eyes narrowing as his mind worked. What I'd said couldn't possibly be true. Even in the crosshairs of his displeasure, I could enjoy watching him as he cycled through strategies with the perfect click of a revolver. This disaster might be the opening throes of some great stratagem that would pay off later. A master with his eye on the biggest picture might overlook the details growing like weeds at his feet.

I put my hand on Demetri's arm, trying to ignore the anxiety in my veins at the very real possibility that I would not get the appendage back. Slowly, I shook my head from side to side. "Even if we could convince Master Aro to take action, he would most likely tell us to convince Adrienne to change her mind." Or he would send Chelsea to work. I wondered if she was capable of severing Adrienne's affection for her own safety. As far as I could tell, she cared about nothing else.

Demetri's lower lip moved at the corners, a tiny shard of childlike expression that quickly disappeared.

"Then _why?_"

"Because she is his favorite," I said, "her and Alec."

Demetri's thoughts flared, images flying past each other like shards from a broken window—men on horseback on the steppe, shouts in Russian, one of them left behind in the snow.

It wasn't that Demetri thought he'd been the favorite. It wasn't even that he wanted to be. It was that Aro had done it at all. Aro wasn't supposed to be some decrepit human grandfather doting on a young darling.

"He's a man," I said, "like us."

I darted to the side as Demetri punched a wall. Then I blinked to clear my eyes of imaginary plaster dust. He hadn't done it; he'd only thought about it. At least he believed me. If he really did think I was slandering Master Aro, my eyes would be oozing in his hands. I was glad I hadn't mentioned Chelsea.

"I want to help, Demetri," I told him, speaking his name for the first time, "I do. But Jane is too precious to him. He won't let us do what we would have to do." And at this point, we would have to do a great deal. Too much time had passed. Too many people had been injured and humiliated. A simple beating would not satisfy the guard, not now. Her punishment would have to be crippling. It would have to be degrading to make up for what she'd done.

This was serious. Demetri truly admired the masters—all three of them. He'd imagined them as a perfect tripod, three pillars supporting our world. To imagine that Aro could be so weak and flawed, that he could hold back out of doting fondness when necessity demanded that he _act_, and the act itself so simple...

For this first time, Demetri realized that Aro was old. And Caius and Marcus, they hadn't stopped him, hadn't put their wills together and done it themselves.

It was like that scar on Heidi's face. In my own eyes, the Volturi were no longer flawless. I'd realized it before—technically—but seeing things through Demetri's ice-clear perspective always made things seem more real.

"He'd tell us to convince Adrienne to stay?" Demetri asked.

I couldn't help but smile. He'd evaluated what I'd said, accepted it as the truth, and now he was ready to address the problem for what it was—an obstacle to be outthought and overcome.

I nodded.

"Can it be done?" he asked.

"My guess is no," I told him. Adrienne was reliving the attack in her mind, and it became more horrific each time. Demetri briefly considered threatening or blackmailing Adrienne into staying but dismissed the idea. Members of the guard attacking each other was what had caused this problem in the first place.

"And if Rolfe were to tell her to stay?"

I'd already thought of it, truth be told. Adrienne had taken up with Rolfe for protection, no more. From her point of view, he'd proven that he was useless. If he came to her with a round moon face and begged her to stay—or if he showed her any of the poetry he'd written—then he'd only look pathetic, less like the strong protector she wanted in a man. "Adrienne isn't really Rolfe's mate. They haven't felt the change. He has less leverage with her than he realizes."

Demetri dismissed the idea and moved on. As terrible as the situation was, I was thrilled to have a front-row seat.

"After Adrienne, who's our biggest problem?" asked Demetri.

"Probably Corin," I said. "I'm not a hundred percent on that, though. It would depend on the circumstances of Adrienne's departure—whether he could follow her without looking like a coward. Richard might be willing to go if Corin doesn't."

Demetri processed this. Corin was one of the Volturi's famous fighters. Losing him was unacceptable. And the man couldn't tell a lie to save his life. The first nomads he encountered would know that the Volturi had gone soft. The neck of this series of events, the narrow place where it could be choked, was Corin.

"Has he selected an excuse yet?" asked Demetri.

"An excuse?"

Demetri glared at me sourly. _He's not going to go to Caius and say, "Master, Jane puts me in fear. May I go?" He'll lie._

"No," I told him, frowning. "Not yet, but..."

"But you think you know what he might say," Demetri prompted.

There was something other than Jane that Corin did not like. There was something that might actually have been reason enough to leave on its own. I told him.

An idea took shape in Demetri's mind. He looked at me.

_Well?_ he asked.

It would work, at least for a while, I figured.

"I will tell the master."

Demetri cast his eyes the way Bella had gone.

"I will tell her too, and probably first," I admitted. "Don't pretend you didn't know that."

Demetri eyed me critically. I raised an eyebrow at the speculation in his mind. "Even in the middle of a crisis, you can wonder about that? It isn't really your business."

"That would be why I didn't say anything out loud," Demetri answered pointedly. "I'd be the first to admit that what a man and his mate do or don't do is their own concern, but you can't deny that it's strange."

"I can deny anything I please," I said, turning away. The master was waiting, or he would be if he knew what I had to tell him

The truth was that Demetri had a point. Bella and I had reached a sort of plateau. She'd forgiven me more readily than I could have hoped, and, in the few moments that we could steal in the hallways or our practice tunnel, she seemed to welcome my touch. I sometimes got the impression that she was waiting for something. I kept meaning to talk to her about the way the newborn blood interfered with other desires, to tell her that she'd be able to enjoy things the way she used to eventually, but I didn't want to break the equilibrium of the things as they were. After a long uphill climb, it was pleasant to linger at a status quo, at least for a while.

Deep down, I knew it wasn't only that. She was waiting for me to say it. I hadn't yet. Logically, I didn't know what was keeping me. On every other level, though, it made perfect sense. It was a block that I couldn't get past. And it might have been childish to point it out, but she hadn't said it to me either.

We had time. For that, we had time, assuming, of course, that our coven didn't fly apart around us.

.

.

.

Adrienne did leave that night. She came to Caius when he was in the feasting hall with only Rolfe and Felix to attend him. I watched through Rolfe's perspective. She'd bowed, gracefully as ever, and Rolfe's attention had lingered on the attractive limbs that he'd come to enjoy. It was a full minute before he realized what she was asking Caius to let her do.

_But you said I was your champion_, he thought, and I pictured his face, round like a disappointed child's. She really had called him that, and he'd been so proud to hear her say it. Her words had made him picture her as a human youth under the Capetians, tying a favor around a knight's lance. I tried not to grimace at the inaccuracy of it all. Rolfe was far more like the actual _chevaliers_ who had hacked their way through France long before the age of courtly love.

I felt sorry, so sorry that I hadn't told him what I'd known about Adrienne before he'd gotten into this mess.

Adrienne didn't look at Rolfe. Not once. I wasn't even certain that she thought about him.

I found I was disgusted. The masters had done everything in their power to make me stay—Demetri, Bella, subtle threats to Carlisle—and Felix had spent six months using me for target practice. Adrienne abandoned her duty because of a few bites? She was a weakling. She'd always been a weakling, never up to the Volturi caliber. I wondered why she'd been permitted to join this coven in the first place.

The next day, on Aro's instructions, I watched Corin and Richard instead of Jane. I stayed in the center of the compound and listened for their thoughts. Demetri and I had gambled that Corin would be the first one to make a decision, but it was far from a sure thing. I had to be ready to call for a change of plan. Richard was already thinking about seeing Nova Scotia again. I suddenly realized that I hadn't tipped off Chelsea. I didn't like Richard or Corin, but Chelsea might truly have been able to help...

I shook my head. Sometimes I couldn't believe the things I found myself thinking.

All three of the masters were in the hall that evening. Afton and Rolfe were discussing compound security with Caius—or at least that was why they thought they were present. Chelsea was supposedly waiting for Afton. Other vampires lingered nearby as well. Not the whole coven, but certainly enough.

Corin certainly noticed the abundance of witnesses

I'd worn the cloak when I'd gone to fetch him. I knew I needed all the help I could get. Corin had been a token participant in my hazing process, but he hadn't paid much attention to me since. I hadn't impressed him much.

"The master wants to see you," I told him.

Corin processed this quickly. He had heard from Rolfe and Demetri how my gift worked, and he knew his thoughts hadn't exactly been loyal of late.

"Master Caius?" he asked cautiously, wondering, as many vampires were these days, what punishment would look like without Jane.

"Master Aro," I said.

Corin eyed me with suspicion, but he came with me.

Aro turned toward us as we walked in, "Ah yes, Corin," he said. "There is a matter of some delicacy that I wish to discuss with you."

.

.

.

The next day, I pretended to pour over a roadmap while I listened to the others prepare. I'd never been to Croatia before. At least on paper, western Croatia looked a lot like northeastern Italy and southern Slovenia. The people were different, or at least they fancied that they were. Thoughts in Croatian probably wouldn't be that much different from other thoughts, at least not when vampires were around. "Who are you?" "Why are you doing this?" That tended to be the gist of it.

I fought the urge to look up as Corin joined us. I saw him visualize Afton and Chelsea, where they stood whispering by the door, then Bella, who was showing Caroly how to tie up a boot without snapping the laces. Renata was nearby, insisting that Caroly should practice slow movements one more time instead. _Newborns and freaks,_ he thought dully. There would be no honor in this. Winning a great victory with a mismatched team was one thing, but Corin was just starting to figure out that he'd been railroaded. He eyed Demetri, who was leaning still as a shadow against a pillar. _At least they gave me the tracker_.

Aro had given him more than that. Corin had been going to ask to leave, giving as his excuse the fact that he'd never been offered a command. Aro's offer had knocked him off-balance, especially because it had been made in front of half the coven. He'd accepted with the same breath that he'd drawn in to ask to leave. He couldn't turn down a direct order from the master—and an offer was an order—not in front of witnesses. If he left before a mission, everyone would think he was afraid of the Volturi's enemies. It would reinforce our reputation rather than damage it.

It was an ultimatum. Stay and serve or go and leave your courage behind.

If he completed the mission, though, then he could find another way to depart. Perhaps he would claim that Jane had behaved erratically in the field and cite lack of discipline. Then the fallout would be worse, not better. It was a gamble, and one that we would only win if Caius's plan worked and the pressure of the mission gave Jane back her edge. I didn't have high hopes. Jane wasn't bored. She felt stifled, but more space would just mean more stimuli.

So we had a commander who did not know that the real purpose of the mission was to let Jane blow off some steam. Chelsea and I had been specifically tasked with her. I could hear Afton murmuring to Chelsea as she settled her cloak about her shoulders. Chelsea's nerves had been fried ever since our meeting with the masters. She'd failed them far more than I had. I ignored the two of them until Chelsea turned to look at me over her shoulder. I'd never seen her look at anything that way, sad and vulnerable. It seemed that she knew we were both on the chopping block, but she was far less accepting of it than I was. I tried not to feel smug about that. I was trying to fit in, after all.

"Are you coming to Croatia too, Renata?" Caroly asked as Bella laced up her own high boots. No ballet flats on this trip. Uniformity and strength. Bella had asked about wearing trousers but she'd made no headway. I was getting used to her in gray dresses, though.

"Not this time," Renata answered, laying her hand on the newborn's wrist. I wondered if she'd learned the gesture from Bella, "but there are plenty of people here to look out for you. Everyone wants you to make us proud. You're only the third Volturi newborn in more than a hundred years."

Caroly gave a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Her thoughts were muted. She wasn't confident about this trip.

"I'll be there, though," said Bella, gently touching the girl on the shoulder. "And I've been out in the field before." I grimaced. No sense in saying that it had only been the once before Caius had decided that her talents would be put to better use tending the by-products of Aro's little experiment. At least being ordered to turn new vampires had a bright side. "Remember to do just as Corin tells you and you'll be fine."

"But you didn't eat with us," she said, iridescent red eyes frowning in concern. "Renata said that the blood gives us strength. Won't you need it?"

Bella smiled. I noticed the tightness around her eyes, but Caroly did not. "Edward and I don't take human blood," she said. "We're like vegetarians."

I saw Caroly's lips purse. Corin thought that it looked like disapproval, but I noted with surprise that she was trying to remember what the word meant. Caroly's human life was like shadows in her mind, more so than was usual for vampire newborns. Most of us lost our memories slowly, the way that a child in a new country can lose his first language. It wasn't supposed to happen all at once. I wondered if it was that she'd been so eager to be turned and leave humanity behind. With Marcell in no coherent shape, Caroly and Bella were the only two vampires in Volterra who'd known what was happening when they were turned. Bella had her parents, her reasons to remember. Perhaps Caroly did not. I could remember that I'd once met a vampire who remembered nothing at all of her human life, but the rest of her story escaped me.

"Is that what those pigs were for?" Caroly asked. "Renata says that pigs' blood makes you ill in the head."

"Renata talks too much," answered Bella, making the last tug on her knot a little tighter than it needed to be.

Caroly looked at something behind me. "Does she have to come with us?" she asked in what she probably thought was a hushed tone.

Bella didn't need to look. "Caroly, remember what we talked about," she said soberly.

Caroly nodded, going over the list in her head. In her memory, I could see Bella and Renata giving Caroly a very thorough lesson on the new Volterran etiquette: No references to Jane's size or age. No talking back. No talking at all. No looking at her. No disagreeing with her. No hesitation. The list came to her easily, like the drape of a cloth following a woman's body. Caroly's memories might be gone, but her sense of people was still working.

The world had gone mad indeed if a newborn vampire was being told how to keep a mature one calm.

I'd been so wrapped up in Jane that I'd hardly given Caroly any thought. Sending a newborn out on a mission was foolish enough, but two? Sure, Bella was nearing her year mark and her level of control had always been uncanny for her age, but bringing two newborns would have been pushing it even if Jane had been capable of helping

So this was what it took to make Bella disciplined. Give her someone to watch over and she became a model member of the guard. Caroly mirrored everything she did practically stride for stride. Bella might not be the strongest or most dutiful member of the guard, but she had a talent for making others strong and dutiful.

Good. Perfect. Raising newborns was a practical skill, but not one for which the Volturi had historically had much need. She was skilled enough to be useful and common enough to give away.

Bella had briefed Caroly well. She nodded attentively as Corin laid down the orders and outlined the purpose of the mission. We were to go to Croatia to investigate the irregularities near the Slovenian border. Combat was possible if any crime had been committed and if the criminals were still there. Corin didn't think we were likely to see anything—he was actually a little resentful of being sent on what he saw as a milk run—but Demetri hadn't been so certain. His last trip to Budapest had given him pause.

We left the city without incident. Ordinarily, we would have taken a train part of the way, but our group was so large that Corin hadn't wanted to attract attention. My opinion had not been asked, but I supported the decision. I didn't want Jane to find our mode of transportation too slow or confining. A good long run through open spaces would do her good.

Of course, Europe only had so many open spaces. I could remember a scrap of conversation with my human father in which he'd talked about his boyhood. They'd thought that there would be no end to opportunities in the West. Once the frontier had closed, fools like Theodore Roosevelt talked about how America's wide open spaces needed to be preserved. My father had thought it was because he'd spent time out west as a rancher. Now I realized that it was probably because he'd visited Europe.

"Who are we hunting?" Caroly asked as we hid in a brushy stretch of woods beside the highway.

"Nomads," snapped Jane, who clearly considered that to be sufficient answer.

Caroly eyed Jane carefully and then looked at Corin. "Did they break the law?" she asked carefully. Jane bristled internally at being sidestepped, but she did not do anything else.

"Oh yes," said Corin. I almost resented the lack of hostility in his voice. First, Caroly was an ordinary newborn rather than a vegetarian cultist like Bella or a newcomer like me. Second, there was the fact that she was tall, blonde and well-formed, and Corin had not had a mate in many years.

I suddenly imagined tearing Corin's head off for his nerve. Or setting him on fire. Or just doing something that would really hurt, like pulverizing his flesh, maybe with a shotgun...

I gasped.

"Are you all right, Edward?" asked Bella.

"Yes, I'm fine. I just think I might understand Charlie better than I'd like."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

.

.

.

There had been a string of deaths in the outskirts of Dragonja in Slovenia, then another near Buzet. Bodies drained of blood. That in itself was not unusual, but the bodies had not been destroyed or concealed until the evidence rotted. Local law enforcement was flummoxed. Due to the timing and placement of the events, adjacent to neither major highways nor mass transit, no one had yet concluded that they might have been caused by the same group of people.

Night came, and Croatia lit. The infrastructure was strong, and electricity was plentiful, even here in the sticks. We avoided the highway, which was new and in good repair. Not many nomads preferred places like this, farmland spotted with towns. It was either the large cities, where the crime rate could provide a cover, or the wildlands, where the bodies would never be found at all. Croatia's war for independence had made this prime vampire land back in the early nineties, but now all these pulsing, throbbing lives were a crime waiting to happen.

This type of hunt usually took weeks, but pursuits lasting well over one year were not unheard of. Trackers had to be sent to the sites of the irregularities. Local rumors had to be consulted. The perpetrators had to be found. Swift justice was good, but sure justice was better. The Volturi offered no statute of limitations.

Aro hadn't wanted a long mission this time, so he had sent Demetri with us. I'd been on three missions with him by now, but always with him as team leader. After months of dealing with Felix and Afton, I hadn't expected something like this: Demetri could slip from a leader to a follower at will. It was somehow more startling than watching Levi Uley change into a wolf.

We first tracked them to a resort on the coast. It was the off season, but there were always a few tourists, and locals enjoying a view of the waves without a crowd to get in the way. Many of the businesses were still closed for the winter. The others waited in one while Demetri and I picked up the trail. They were long gone, but Demetri knew where they were going.

"What happened?" Bella murmured to me as we made our way, at human speed, to the edge of town. In my mind's eye, I saw Caroly listening intently.

"Pretty much what the library crew said," I told her. We'd been briefed before leaving Volterra, a typical case, like the one we'd seen together the previous year. "There was feeding here, and the humans were allowed to learn of it." Caroly's eyes on me were wide and attentive. She was eager to please. "There was a crime here," I confirmed.

"Will we have to fight them?" she asked.

I nodded my head toward Corin. "Ask him," I said. In truth, it would be more than possible to send us back—or at least send Caroly back—and send for a larger team with more fighters. Technically, though, Demetri, Corin, Jane and myself ought to have been more than enough.

Demetri was speaking to Corin, telling him what he'd found in words that he would accept and understand. I realized as I watched Demetri's mind, that the longer Corin and Jane both stayed out of Volterra, the more time Aro would have to work on Richard, shore him up against his desire to leave.

And Demetri had caught their trail.

We weren't going back.

.

.

.

Bella stuck close to Caroly the whole time. I wondered if she knew how much that soothed the girl. Probably. Bella was an absolute monster once she decided to pay attention.

Now if the same could be said for Chelsea... I tried to warn her that she was only irritating Jane, but she liked to get close when she used her powers. It wasn't working. Chelsea tried to tighten Jane's ties to the rest of us, turn her docile like she had been, but it was like trying to bend a bunch of willow twigs just a bit too big for her grip. One would always spring up, and then others would spring up until she drew her hands away a mass of cuts.

I found myself reciting Caroly's mantra. Don't talk to her. Don't look at her. Never say anything about size or height. Jane had stayed quiet—for now, but she was like a simmering pot. The excursion had so far done nothing to tone down her flames.

Corin had chosen a sparse wooded area as a place for us to hide for the day. Tomorrow we might have more freedom if we could make it up into the hills that lined the Slovenian border. As the dawn began to break, I noticed Bella hanging behind. In Chelsea's memory, I saw her check her shoe. _Probably broke a heel; the pretty ones always choose foolish shoes_. I tried not to sniff. Chelsea was not the most observant person. She'd imagined Bella wearing heeled pumps, even though she'd been in boots throughout the mission and stuck to flats in the compound. I supposed I could forgive her for not knowing that my lady had preferred practical clothes up until the day Renata had started picking out her outfits. Even that green birthday dress had been chosen by—my neck suddenly hurt—Esme, not Bella herself.

I kept a close watch on the others. Demetri had found a place to wait out the light, a place where the trees were thicker and our cloaks would offer us protection from any humans who might wander by.

Jane was as calm as she ever got these days. Chelsea kept a loose eye on her as she watched the few birds foolish enough to remain near us. Caroly seemed calm as well. She was practicing sitting still but not too still, like Bella and Renata had taught her. She listened to Corin and Demetri speak quietly about their plans for the night. Demetri was talking about where he thought our quarry might be hiding out the day. He had a map of the area spread out in front of him. It seemed his gift could tell him distance as well as direction, gave him a sense of what kind of cover his prey would seek. I should have found it facinating

I hung back, drifted away in as non-threatening a manner as I could. Bella probably wanted to talk to me. It was practically code—slip away and wait. I found her just out of easy earshot, one pale hand playing on the bark of a thick oak tree. She smiled as I drew closer. So it wasn't bad news, at least. I opened my mouth to ask her what she wanted, but when I came within arm's length, she took hold of the sleeve on my upper arm and pulled me down into a kiss.

"What was that for?" I murmured.

"I can't just want to kiss you?" she said.

I smiled. "You know perfectly well that you can."

"I'm just happy," she said. "I'm _so_ happy."

"What, to be outside?" I asked.

She looked to her left and then nodded. "Yes, I'm happy we're outside," she said, grasping the collar of my shirt and gently tugging me down again. "No snooping coven," she said between kisses, "no Aro calling you every second..."

She _was_ happy, I noted. There was an effervescent enthusiasm to her that she'd never shown me in Volterra. I reached under her cloak and put my hands on her hips, guiding her toward me so that I could fit my arms around her as she stood up on her toes. Vampire strength was one thing, but it couldn't make her taller.

God but she felt good. There was a time when I'd thought I would never feel this again. There was a longer time, before that, when I'd thought I would never feel it at all.

And there was so much to feel. I broke away from her kiss before I could get too carried away and touched my lips to her cheeks, her forehead, her eyes as her hands slipped under my cloak to rub my back. She'd learned to be gentle, but she was still so strong. There was no thrill like having this vibrant, dangerous creature in my arms with her teeth so close to my throat, knowing that she could tear me apart and would not.

"Easy," I murmured. "We're on the job."

"Yes," she said, "and we can't go anywhere anyway," she broke each phrase with a kiss, "so we're taking a break. Even the guys at the burger barn get two fifteens and a twenty."

"If they think we're distracting each other, they won't let us come out here together again," I warned her. "And that goes double if Caroly acts up because you weren't watching her."

She leaned back and looked me in the eye. "If you're still thinking about Caroly, then I must be doing this wrong."

"You're not doing this wrong—I mean, that's not what's wrong. I mean—"

She stopped me with another kiss. It was just as well. I wasn't very articulate out loud today. She seemed to pay more attention when I communicated this way, anyway. As she slid her fingers from the back of my neck, I suddenly remembered that was a master communicator. Another minute and I was convinced I was some sort of genius.

We'd gone this far before, in stolen moments back at the compound, but something about her touch seemed different today. Bella smiled against my lips. Perhas I was being silly, I thought to myself. Perhaps it was only the open air and the lack of walls and prying eyes. I felt her fingers flex on my right hip and then she tucked just the last knuckle of her finger underneath my belt. I gasped and her lips formed a smirk. I couldn't blame her. I was as surprised as if she'd grabbed me outright.

I put my hands on her shoulders and held her halfway to arm's length.

She smiled, eyebrows raising just a little. She didn't even have the good grace to look sheepish. I looked off to the side and then back at her. She was just Bella, smiling and patient as she watched me figure out just what she'd planned for our "break time."

_Oh_.

And it wasn't that I didn't want to. She was beautiful and engaging and... And I'd _committed _to the idea that she was Bella.

"We could work our way up to it," she said, _exactly_ as if she'd known I'd have trouble with this. "We don't have to do _everything_ if you don't want." She took one of my hands and held in front of her in both of hers. I wasn't touching her breast but I could have if I'd opened my fingers. And I could see in her face, to my amazement, that she wouldn't have slapped me. Weeks ago, she'd knocked me flat on my back for that one ill-advised kiss, but today, she wouldn't so much as tell me to stop. "I just thought it would be easier out here. The last time we were out in the woods together, you seemed so much more comfortable."

I was never going to live that down, was I?

"Bella," I said gently. "We didn't..." I searched for the words. "We didn't have a _job_ to do then."

"Well you've got one to do _now_," she purred, trying to wiggle toward me and kiss me again.

I settled my grip on her arms and pulled back. So far, I'd accepted everything she'd given me, and gladly, but this crossed a line. "Bella," I said gently, "we'll have plenty of time for this once you're back—"

"Okay," she said stepping back, holding both hands in the air. "Full disclosure? I don't want to wait until we're back in Volterra. I know it's weird to do this outside, but it bothers me a lot less, and I can't predict the next time they'll let us both out again."

"That wasn't what I was going to say," I told her patiently. "I mean that we can certainly wait until..." God but how did I put this? "Until you ...feel a bit more like yourself."

Bella stepped back, frowning. "'Until I feel a bit more like myself'?" she asked.

I nodded. Her narrowed eyes were making me a bit nervous.

"Edward," she said with a dangerous clip to her voice, "is there some kind of vampire PMS that I don't know about?"

"Ah," I said, feeling like I was tiptoing backwards across a lava pit, "not that I know of. I only mean that there's no reason to become ...more intimate before you could truly ...enjoy it." I placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. "Really, Bella, I'm content with things the way they are. You do more than enough for me."

"What do you mean 'before I could enjoy it'?" she asked.

Master communicator indeed. I suddenly wished that the me of a few moments past were here. "I mean," I said uncomfortably, "we should wait until your physical appetites have returned," I told her. "It does happen," I said in as comforting a voice as I could manage. "Trust me."

Bella didn't look comforted, however. "Returned from where?" she asked, hands on her hips. "Detroit?"

Now it was my turn to feel confused. "Bella, don't you remember what it felt like to be human?" Her expression didn't change. How could I put this delicately? My human Bella's appreciation for my touch had been no secret to anyone. Her scent alone... I'd had to endure several of Emmett's more creative jokes. "Do you remember how you'd feel when I'd kiss you?"

"Yes, I remember," she said, her voice going up like a brass trombone about to bash the bassoonist in the head. "What does that have to do with us _not_ making the most of some time alone?"

"Well, Bella, it does come back," I told her. "Like everything else in this life, it's somewhat different, but..." I trailed off. Her eyebrows had shot halfway up her forehead. Something didn't add up here, and I was starting to get an inkling of what it was.

Bella, as usual, was two steps ahead of me. "Edward are you under the impression that my sex drive shut down when I became a vampire?" she asked baldly.

How could she say it like—? Well, technically, she'd hit the nail on the head. "Well not to put too fine a point on it but yes," I finally admitted. "So you're saying that you still..."

"Yup," she said.

"For how long?" I asked. Surely not before the past month, when we'd been together.

"The whole time?" she guessed. "I mean, those first days were kind of hairy, but I didn't notice anything missing." I breathed out. The whole time? So... When I'd taken her to feed that first week and I'd taken off my shirt, she'd been... And up in the showers that day when I'd watched her comb her hair. A hundred other careless moments and innocent touches ran through my mind—at least they'd been innocent on my part.

It chimed like a bell inside my mind. When Bella had been trying to seduce me with her charms, she hadn't just been trying to secure me as a protector or show me her grattitude; she'd also _actually_ been trying to seduce me. The knowledge of it prickled across my skin. I swallowed the venom in my mouth. Suddenly the idea of the two of us being out here alone didn't seem at all strange. A large part of my mind was telling me not to be a fool and waste it. The rest of my mind was busy making plans, most of them heavily visual.

Bella seemed to be doing some processing of her own. "So newborns usually lose their sex drives?" she asked after a moment.

"They lose almost every physical desire except the thirst," I supplied, eager to talk about something less complicated than my reevaluation of every interaction we'd had over the past ten months. "It usually takes about a year for everything to reassert itself."

"That makes so much sense," she said, smiling. "The way Marcell and Caroly act, it seemed so strange." She looked up, "Is _that_ why Renata called Byron a pervert for hitting on me that time? Because she thought I was underage?"

I nodded. "It's not as deviant as pursuing a human, but it's seen as a bit indecent, yes."

Bella fixed both dark amber eyes on me with a wicked smile, "So what are you, then?" she asked.

I smiled back, "I'm no incubus," I told her with mock defensiveness, letting her watch me take in her white skin and amber eyes. "Not anymore. I find that I am completely reformed."

She chuckled, deep in her throat. Then her brow creased. "Wait a minute," she said, holding up a hand. "So if you thought I had no drive, what did you think we were doing all those times when I came and made out with you?"

_Accommodating my baser needs?_ I thought. Judging by the look on her face, I was damned lucky that I hadn't said that out loud. I'd thought she was being the most wonderful woman ever, truth be told. And then there was the emotional aspect. Being held by another person was comforting and intimate even when it wasn't sexual. I figured that that was the level on which she'd enjoyed our encounters.

"You thought I only did it to please you," Bella realized out loud. "That's what all that 'you don't have to' was about, wasn't it?" She stepped back and paced back and forth. "You thought I was acting? You couldn't tell that I was into you?"

"Bella, I knew that _emotionally_—"

"But you thought I was just servicing you, like some frigid Victorian chick?"

"That's actually a myth. Back when I was human, people weren't without their—"

"That's not the point!"

"Bella, I thought you were doing something very nice for me," I said, taking a step toward her. "What I _thought_ was that I was the luckiest man on the planet. Is that really so bad?"

"Well I wasn't doing something very nice for you," she said, taking a step toward me until her chin was only an inch from my chest. "I was being completely selfish," she said.

"Good to know," I murmured back.

Bella met my eyes carefully, her fingers playing at the collar of my shirt.

"Bella," I said warningly.

"We don't have to do everything," she protested again. "And that was your main reason for saying no, wasn't it?"

I looked away. Was it? I always figured that I'd be like Emmett or Carlisle, that I'd get married. That wasn't something that was going to be possible here. In this context, the Volterra context, the whole concept was completely alien to me. How would it even _work_? Intellectually, I could realize that couples enjoyed intimate moments the way Bella and I had enjoyed kissing: in between shifts, in the stairwells and alcoves and secluded places—on one memorable occasion in the art gallery—but the idea of doing something like that _myself _seemed impossible. The idea of having a vampire mate at all seemed impossible. Did doing this mean that she'd expect things to be different between us when we got back? What if Demetri or someone came and caught us? What if something went wrong while we were busy? How would we get cleaned up afterward? What if I found out that I was wrong, and she wasn't my Bella and I had to stay with her forever anyway? What if I was right and I'd put this sin on her soul? What if she didn't love me? What if—

"It's all right," Bella said, slipping away.

I caught her arm. "It's just... I need to think," I said helplessly. "I wasn't expecting..." I took a breath. "I just need to think."

She nodded, her face a mask. "Good," she said simply. "That's good. We can talk some more after you think."

I let her walk back to the others alone. _Good_, I tried to tell myself. Caroly needed her more than she seemed to realize. And good for me. I was angry. That damned girl had made me so angry. And a number of other things, but angry was the one I could work with.

Why did she do this to me? The last thing I needed was to be distracted in the field. I was supposed to be focusing on Jane. Why did she have to go and introduce a new element when I'd only just gotten used to things the way they were? Why did she have to _feel_ so damned wonderful when she knew I couldn't do what she wanted—or she should have known.

I waited until I was something like rational and returned to camp a few minutes after Bella did. She was sitting near Caroly, not saying anything. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, she'd mastered the art of sitting perfectly still.

Demetri looked up as I returned. _Damn it,_ he thought, taking me in._ He'll be no use for days._ And if I didn't convince him otherwise, he would convince Caius not to send Bella and me out together again—which I absolutely could not allow because then we'd never have another moment out in the woods again—gyah! What was I thinking?

Corin was slightly less perceptive. And he seemed to share Bella's opinions about proper use of mission downtime. _Nothing wrong with a man having needs_, he thought. _Wouldn't mind it myself if I had a woman that fine._ Then he had the audacity to look at Caroly. Wonderful. Now I was distracted by Bella _and_ I wanted to kill and mutilate my commanding officer.

I wondered if I should apologize to Bella. I hadn't done anything wrong, not really, but her feelings might still be hurt. She had offered me something precious, after all, and I had turned her down.

I watched her lean toward Caroly to whisper something in her ear. In Caroly's mind, I could hear her talking about the way sound carried in the woods. A good lesson, well delivered. Yes, there was something precious here.

The day grew and Bella acted like nothing was wrong. So did I. My mission was to focus on Jane so I focused on Jane. We all sat still as shadows and I watched Jane watch the light and listen to the small sounds of plants and animals. We weren't out in the wilderness, not really, but it was a far cry from bustling Volterra. I was beginning to think that Caius might have been right about getting her out of the city when her thoughts struck back to that cell like a magnet, images of Marcell clicking and folding over each other in an infuriating mass. Her fingers flexed on nothing and Marcell's face was suddenly replaced with another. I stood up just a second before she rose from her place and made for Caroly out of nowhere.

By the time Jane reached the place where she'd been sitting, I'd taken Caroly by the arm and pulled her out of the way. Jane's hands closed on empty air.

Corin was on his feet, fighting the reflex to order Jane to behave. Chelsea didn't move an inch, but her mind worked rapidly, tryng to get a grip on Jane, bind her to the rest of us as members of her team. But today was a bad day.

Bella was behind me, touching Caroly's upper arms lightly with both her hands. I felt my own body go stiff as I saw Jane gather her focus to use her gift. Without thinking, I grit my teeth and tensed every muscle in my body. When I saw Caroly doubled over on the ground, I felt relief wash through me like an icy rain. Then I felt ashamed.

By now, Caroly had fallen into a fetal position, making a high, interrupted sound in the back of her throat. Bella was looking at her hands splayed out in front of that trembling body, as if Caroly was a boiling pool and she had to pluck a stone from the bottom. "Stop it!" she cried out before I could warn her not to. Bella crouched over her, cutting off Jane's line of sight. It didn't help.

"She deserves it!" hissed Jane.

"Jane we must be quiet," Demetri said, nodding his head toward where Caroly clawed at the earth, choking on air. I hadn't even seen him get to his feet, but here he was. "We _must _not be discovered here."

I shook myself, trying to think the way Demetri did. "Caroly can't keep that up," I urged in a loud whisper. "She'll scream soon." I forced my voice to get as calm as I could, full of honey and oil, "Jane, you must stop."

"Don't tell me what to do!"

From the corner of my eye, I saw Corin nod to Bella. "Jane!" Demetri half-shouted, drawing her attention as Bella rose to her feet. Before Jane could turn her head, Bella had her arms wrapped around the smaller vampire, lifting her off the ground. Jane snarled and struggled as Bella pinned her arms to her sides. I heard Bella give out a soft cry as Jane's teeth made contact with her wrist. Before I realized what I was doing, I'd closed the distance between us and had both hands on the smaller vampire, for what purpose I didn't know. Then the world caught light, and I was the one digging my heels against the leaf litter, trying not to make a sound.

When I returned to myself, neithier Jane nor Bella was in sight. I cast my eyes toward Corin, "We talked about it ahead of time," he explained. "Because Jane's powers do not work on her."

I didn't open my mouth. This was the first time that anyone had ever used Bella's immunity in the field, and I found that I did not like it. Not even watching the harmony of the event in Demetri's flawless lens of a perspective could make me enjoy the prospect.

"Alone?" I asked.

"No one else is safe with Jane."

"Bella is not safe with Jane," I answered.

Corin eyed me straight on. "Bella is an adult. Whom else should we send? This newborn?"

That drew my attention back to Caroly. She was still curled up on her side, but she appeared limp and boneless, not the jabbering pile of pain I'd seen a few moments before, a few strands of blond hair leaking out of the side of her cloak.

"How did she manage to keep quiet?" I breathed, not even sure that I'd said it out loud.

"Bella always said that you did," she murmured back. I blinked. I hadn't expected an answer, let alone... I watched Caroly's thoughts carefully. Bella and Renata had spoken of my discipline, my perfect self-control as something to admire and emulate. She was proud that her maker was accomplished. I swallowed. I'd have to talk to Bella about this. If we were lucky, she hadn't told any stories about Carlisle.

_That's not good_, Demetri thought, looking at me.

Demetri was right. It wasn't. Except it was.

I breathed in and out. Caroly would be mature soon, and this illusion of innocence that she had would fade. She'd be as thoughtless and heartless as she'd ever been as a human, and then all these protective feelings that I had toward her would disperse.

I pulled my attention away from the newborn—not _my_ newborn, I had to remind myself—and looked for Jane. She and Bella were not far away, just out of sight down the rise. Chelsea was with them.

_"...so stuck up; thinks she's better than everyone,"_ Jane was railing, mind turning over itself with images of the vampire in question.

_"I know,"_ said Bella. _"And then there was that one time when she said Adrienne stole her barette, and she'd just forgotten it someplace."_

Chelsea said nothing but nodded vehemently.

I frowned. Corin and Demetri were staring at me. "They're..." I trailed off. "They're talking about Heidi," I supplied.

"Heidi?" asked Corin. "Why?"

I wasn't sure, but I had a sneaking suspicion. I returned my attention to the conversation in my thoughts. When had Bella learned to do _that_? Sure, she'd sat next to that harpy Lauren Mallory, but I'd never figured she'd actually been listening, let alone copying her style. It didn't seem like the sort of thing my Bella would do.

"Have you ever seen a lightning rod?" I asked.

_Oh..._ Demetri leaned back. "Women's politics," he said to Corin.

That was too kind a term for it, but it would do.

_We'll be back in an hour or so, Edward_, I jumped at the clear, female voice.

"What?" asked Demetri.

"Chelsea," I said quietly. "She says to give them a while." Demetri frowned and I tapped the side of my head.

The hatchet-faced man actually smiled. _About time someone other than me decided to do that. What use is a reader if they don't send messages?_ I decided not to mention Afton or Zhengzhou. I caught a glimpse in his thoughts of the hundred ways he'd figured out how to use me, most of them involving the coordination of divided attacks.

It hadn't been the fact of the message; it was that Chelsea trusted me to act on it and expected me to trust her not to sabotage me. Poor thing thought we were in this together and that I gave a damn about her. Except we were, so I had to.

Bella and Chelsea did return with Jane but not until it was nearly time to move again. Chelsea actually looked at me gratefully. It was strange but with that expression on her face, she didn't seem nearly so forbidding as she had. Bella sat down next to Caroly and put her arm around her. I held my breath, but Jane didn't react to Bella or anything.

Demetri had our path planned out and we left the minute the sun dipped behind the horizon. I brought up the rear, mindful of Jane, ready to warn the others of another flareup. After a few miles, I noticed Bella lagging behind, cloak rippling like smoke in the growing shadows. Eventually, she fell into step beside me.

"We can talk later," I wanted to say, but I didn't. I wanted to know what was in her mind. I risked looking over my shoulder to find her watching me, face full of sadness and concern. Without breaking stride, I reached out and squeezed her hand, quickly letting go. Demetri set a brutal pace, and he'd chosen to keep to the wooded area that ran parallel to the highway. We'd be past it soon.

"I want to protect her, Edward," she whispered.

"I know," I said, "but we have to remember remember she belongs to Aro."

"But I taught her and I take care of her, so she's sort of mine too, isn't she?"

I ducked under a branch. "It's true, but don't say it out loud," I told her.

"Edward," I could hear her voice breaking, "I—"

I grabbed her arm and swung us to a stop, wrapping my arms tight around her. She tucked her head against my shoulder like a hand into a well-worn leather glove.

"Say what you need to say," I hissed in a loud whisper. We had a minute, if that, before Corin or Demetri realized we'd fallen behind. Even if Demetri didn't accuse us of trying to run away, it would be our fault for delaying the mission and distracting our teammates.

"I want so much to protect her, Edward," she breathed into my shoulder. "It's sick that I don't. I feel so _sick_."

I kept my arms around her, gently rubbing her back. The first rays of the moon were hitting the tops of the low trees, turning the world an unaccusing gray. "It's natural to feel ashamed when you can't help," I said. "We'll all feel better once Jane is well."

I felt Bella's throat flex against my shoulder as she swallowed.

"I just want to go home," she said. The words were fit for a child's whimper, but she gave them to me like a confession, like they were some terrible secret. The worst part was that they had to be.

"We'll be back in the compound soon." It was the safest thing to say. "As soon as our duty's done."

She nodded.

_Don't break discipline in the field._ I willed her to know it. _Never lose what makes you so beautiful_. I willed that even more.

"My Bella," I whispered against her temple.

I let go and we were off again, falling back into place within the guard.

For the next few days, we hunted in the low mountains that separated Slovenia from Croatia. With every footprint, every careless broken twig, Demetri's mental grip on their trail grew stronger. I watched as the images of our quarry took shape in his mind: One female. Three males. An unusual combination. An unusually large group. Something about it seemed ominous.

Corin was scarcely less effective for his lack of a tracker's gift; years of experience had taught him the meaning of every movement in the air, every mark on the ground. The more I watched the two of them, the more I realized that I had no talent for tracking. Even Bella was picking this up faster than I was. During what little time that I did not spend watching Jane, I focused on Demetri, trying to use his improved sense of our prey to imagine what their mental voices would sound like.

To my great surprise, as I learned five days after we'd left Volterra, it worked.

We were three miles away from the building when I held up a hand.

Demetri looked at me and nodded.

"A farmhouse," I said quietly, catching faint, distant images of its walls and windows through their eyes. Windows! It was blatant. It was practically a dare.

What was it about farmhouses? But I already knew. What one gained in privacy and convenience to one's own property, one lost in safety. Rural areas did not have the crowds or noise of cities.

Unlike the one that Bella and I had visited in the summer, this was a modern, mechanized farm, and still in operation, or at least it would be once the frost was done. The cleared ditches and well-maintained equipment suggested to me a child's bedroom with the clothes already laid out for the next day. At this distance, I could see that there was a house on the property, or at least a structure. So much the better. No neighbors coming over for tea. No phones ringing or people to wonder why no one was picking up.

The dusk was gathering. I could feel something moving nearby. Demetri and I exchanged a glance.

"Wait," I said quietly.

Corin looked back at me.

"They're still there," explained Demetri.

"And two of their victims are still alive."

Demetri and Corin both turned to look at me. Corin had always been uneasy around the gifted members of the guard, and Jane's illness had done little to assuage his paranoia. He didn't want the two of us ganging up on him. It was Demetri's eyes that I met, though. He'd known that his prey was nearby, but his gift was selective. He saw what he was looking for and no more. I saw what was there.

"What else?" asked Demetri. From the corner of my eye, I could see Bella watching, her face a mask of pride and focus. Her Volturi face. Beside her, Caroly began to ask a question, but she fell silent at one twitch of Bella's hand.

I turned back toward the farmhouse, casting my attention past the chipped paint and dryrotted windowframes. Silently, I held up four fingers. Demetri nodded. _Go on_, he thought. He wanted what he could not get for himself.

"They drew five humans here," I said. I could see images of two large men, probably agricultural workers, and two women, one wearing a uniform from the seaside resort where she worked the meager winter season. "Two of them are still ...moving." I met Corin's eyes. "Four days."

Corin's lower lip twisted. Keeping human prey alive for that long was a risk. Sooner or later, someone escaped. Sooner or later, someone would speak and be believed.

I met Corin's gaze. "They think we will not come."

His eyes narrowed.

We had not attracted witnesses on this trip. We had thought there would be no need for showmanship.

"Do they know we're here?" Corin asked me directly.

"No, but they will if we do not act soon," I said. "One of them is watching."

Demetri and Corin exchanged a glance. "What are the other three doing?"

"Playing," I answered. I didn't want to say it. I didn't want to admit that I knew what it was. "Like you did three feasts ago," I said to Corin. "Except it's ...taking longer." And it was a crime. In Volterra, where the prey could not escape, it did not matter.

_Playing?_ I heard Caroly wonder. I didn't tell her. But she would open the door and see it soon enough.

I closed my eyes, forcing myself to focus on the images in my head. This was the sort of thing that I usually shied away from, but today, I had to look.

"The front door is barred from the inside," I said, swallowing the venom in my mouth. _Damn. Damn it all_. It was not enough to stop a vampire, only the human police ...

"They're going to let one of the humans go," I said.

Demetri stared at me. "On purpose?"

I nodded. "To alert the police. When they show up..." Food with delivery service. Except it was too easy to track. Even if the human victim did not put two and two together and use the word "vampire," there was still a good chance that he'd figure out that his attackers were not themselves human.

The thoughts I read belonged to a man named Jonas. He'd had this plan for a long time, I could see, a long time, but this was the first time he dared use it. He'd always been too afraid before.

I could hear a growl from Corin's throat. To his mind, these criminals did not deserve the mercy of the quick death we were to inflict upon them.

My eyes flicked to Jane.

"We could always take one back alive," I suggested. "To dispose of properly." It would give my poor charge someone to exert herself upon and it would allow the Volturi a chance to make an example of a blatant criminal.

Corin looked at me and nodded. "If it is at all reasonably practical," he said.

"And the human prisoners?" Bella asked.

I could feel Corin and Demetri's eyes, their thoughts on her. Worse, I could feel Jane's.

"Forgive me, Corin, but I do not know what is customary in these cases," she said, pitch-perfect and bland as a marketing executive at a seminar.

Corin actually smiled. _Setting up a lesson for the new one_, he thought. When he spoke it was for Caroly's benefit. "Always focus on our own kind first," he said. "There will be time to deal with the humans later. They don't move very fast." That was the simplified version. Caroly seemed to understand. I could only hope that Bella did as well.

"Edward should take Jane or Chelsea and go round the other side," said Demetri. Corin frowned. Demetri lowered his voice and explained. This team was larger than usual, for Jane's and Caroly's sakes. Most of our fighters could enter through the front and they wouldn't be expecting more from the rear.

Corin nodded, "Edward, take Jane and Caroly," he said. "Demetri, Chelsea and Bella will be with me."

I tried to avoid the prickle that went down my spine. I didn't like Bella out of my sight, and Corin knew it. Demetri had been good to me—relatively speaking—but I couldn't trust him to make her safety a priority, not when his duty was right in front of him.

_It's nothing_, I told myself. _He's not Felix_. Corin was a strategist. He was only taking his most unreliable fighters and putting them as far from the action as possible.

"Yes sir," I said. I held out a hand to Caroly. She looked at Bella, who nodded, giving an encouraging half-smile.

We crept around the rear of the building, staying well downwind. I had to keep my attention in five places at once. Of the four vampires inside the house, Jonas's voice was clearest, so I focused on him while keeping a general idea of where the others were. One male and the female were upstairs, enjoying the novelty of sex indoors. The other male was with a human. At the same time, I had to watch through Demetri so that I could see where Bella was and wait for his signal. I had to keep Caroly stable. And then there was Jane, dear Jane who could go explosive at any moment and get us all killed.

Corin had been toying with the idea of bursting through the door at once, but he had Chelsea and Demetri at hand and had no intention of wasting them. He had Demetri tell him the exact location of each vampire, twice, carefully, as he planned his strategy.

This gave Chelsea time to get to work. The female upstairs wondered why her partner had suddenly turned less gentle, but none of the rest of them noticed anything. They never did. Chelsea's work was painless.

I felt the wind shift. Damn. Any minute now, someone would catch the scent and they'd know they were not alone.

Breaking glass and wide eyes flashed before me as Demetri shot through the window like an arrow. He got a good clip to the younger vampire's throat before he and his partner fully comprehended what was happening. Then, with all eyes on Demetri, Bella and Corin broke down the door.

Caroly started shifting her feet, and I laid a hand on her arm. They would call us when they needed us. Nearby, Jane gnashed her teeth. There was fighting going on, and she was missing it, she thought. I realized suddenly that this had been the point of the entire exercise—to get her out. To give her air and blood and victims. Corin hadn't known. I hadn't remembered.

Bella and Chelsea each had one of Jonas's arms, and neither was entirely attached to his torso. By now the other two vampires had worked their way down the stairs, still in a state of undress.

Corin was like a miracle in a fight. I'd taught Bella how to dodge an assailant and how to strike, but Corin could duck a kick and make sure that it connected with one of his enemies. No energy was ever wasted; there was no movement that he could not bend to his will. Now he gripped the wrists of the lone female vampire and swung her like a dancer into the youngest of her companions.

Her paramour, on the other hand, was looking left and right and realizing that no one was quite moving his way.

Demetri caught him from the corner of his eye. _Now_, he thought intensely. I motioned sharply to Jane.

"Go!" I clipped.

"You're not my commander!" she hissed.

I lost myself in exasperation, "There's no time for that Jane, just stop him!"

Before the breath even left me, I knew I'd made a mistake. I'd thought her desire to inflict pain in general was stonger than her desire to inflict it on me.

I could see every capillary in the backs of my eyes. The whole world seemed so red that I thought for a second that I had blood again. The throbbing in my nerves and bones might as well have been a heartbeat.

I came back to myself long enough to see a naked leg slip out of the window behind us.

"Caroly!" I let out a choked shout. She wondered with terror that I might be asking her to help me, but I tucked my chin toward the fleeing shadow and shouted, "Don't let him get away!"

Her smooth features contorted in a snarl and she dashed off into the gathering shade. He was fast for a vampire, at least as fast as Demetri, but each one of her strides counted for three of his. In between convulsions, I saw her grasp him hard by the shoulder. Renata and Bella had taught her well, she had the basics down, but he was a better fighter by far. I focused long enough to see him get a grip on her hair and pull her round.

"Jane let me up!" I shouted.

_Made him make a noise!_ bubbled up from the cauldron of her evil brain. _More!_

"There's more in the house, but let me up now!"

_More!_

"Your duty, Jane!" her name dissolved into a choked snarl as all the bones in my spine seemed to shatter. "Your duty is in that house!"

The pain was gone and I was on my feet, registering the crunch of glass behind me as Jane went through the window. Even as I made for Caroly and the criminal, watching their shadowy forms grow larger in my gaze, I realized that I'd just sent Jane into the house. That was where Bella was. I'd done it. I'd done it and I could never take it back.

First things first. The criminal had dark hair and pale skin, most of which was exposed to the evening air. He'd been turned no later than his early twenties, and he was struggling to get Caroly in a necklock. He heard my feet pounding the earth behind him just in time to turn, trying to drag Caroly in front of him.

It ended quickly. I knocked him off balance and Caroly got him on the ground long enough for me to disable his right leg.

"Get his arm!" I ordered. Caroly's only reply was a snarl, but she did as I said, dislocating the limb at the shoulder, exactly as I'd taught Bella to do.

"Throat," I told her.

It was sloppy and messy, like someone trying to gut a fish, but Caroly tore the man's throat from his body, leaving him slack and helpless in our arms as his feet and fingers twitched.

Caroly exhaled, trying to calm her mind like Renata had shown her. For her, it was over, but for me... This man couldn't scream, but he was screaming. I could hear every word.

"Take him apart," I said simply. Caroly nodded. "I'm going to go check on Bella."

I could have kissed her for the kindness and concern on her face. Whatever else this creature was, she was genuinely fond of her teacher, and I loved her for it. Then the victim in her arms twitched, an she let out a growl worthy of any Child of the Moon.

I ran the few dozen steps back to the house, feeling the grittiness of broken glass against my palm as I vaulted through the empty windowsill. "Bella!" I called out, as I found myself in the brightly lit house. Volturi dignity, I thought. I had to maintain the... Oh to hell with it. I laid eyes on her crouched near the far corner of the room. "Bella!"

Bella was gasping, and her eyes looked a little wild. It looked like some of her hair had been torn out, but other than that, she seemed fine. I was on my knees in front of her before I knew I'd moved, my hands on her face. For a split second, she closed her eyes, but then she nodded tightly and pushed me away. _Dignity._ I remembered. We weren't done here.

Demetri and Chelsea were already piling the pieces of the female and one of the males near the fireplace. Demetri was thinking about what a convenience it would be to have one that drew properly, even though it was a little small.

The last criminal, Jonas, was on the floor at Jane's feet.

_God, make it stop!_ The words were doubled in my mind. Jane's power was costing this man all coherence. He wanted it to stop, but he was thinking in someone else's voice. A woman's voice, one that he hadn't heard so very long ago. The words echoed in my mind in a grotesque harmony.

Behind me, there was a careful footfall. I saw her reflection in Bella's eyes as she walked toward Corin. Her light brown hair had been in a ponytail at some point, but now it was sticking out at all angles. Her left hand was wrapped around her torso. She would have looked like she was hugging herself if she hadn't been cupping the seeping stub on her other side. She licked her lips and then breathed in to say something to Corin. I had never truly studied Croatian, but I had picked up the basics. She took a step closer and then said it again. I could feel her heart pound as Corin turned to meet her eyes. Poor thing.

Her words cut off abruptly as Corin's hand closed around her trachea. He squeezed quickly, but not so quickly that he broke her skin or blood vessels. There was no need to let this loose end become a distraction.

The woman's body hit the floor and Corin turned away. Behind them, I could see Bella, staring and open-mouthed.

Damn that woman. Had she thought we'd get to let the humans _leave_? I watched her eyes roll to Corin to me and back to the floor. Good God, she had.

There was no help for it now, not here. I rose to my feet and turned on our remaining prisoner. Jane looked up at me with a satisfied smile, as if she and I had teamed up to do this, as if she hadn't just been wringing the sanity from me outside. This was something she understood. This was something she'd missed.

Demetri nodded toward me. Time for the interrogation.

"Where is the other one?" he asked. I stood behind the prisoner, watching his thoughts.

Corin nodded to Jane and I felt her relax her control a little, dial down the inferno in our prisoner's flesh to the dull burn of glowing embers. We let him gasp like a fish on the docks for a moment and then Demetri repeated his question. The man's hair was the color of wheat mixed with ashes, but in places it was stained with more than one kind of blood.

"Other..."

"You had two humans here," Demetri said with a menace in his voice that I couldn't manage on my best day. "Where is the other one?"

The man's eyes rolled upward. I looked at Demetri and nodded.

Corin looked to Chelsea. "Go get it," he said.

Now that I knew where to look, I could tell why I hadn't been able to locate the human before. Caroly came back downstairs and put the boy on the floor for Corin to see. He was still moving, which shocked me. Both arms had swollen up to twice their proper size, and it couldn't manage to push itself to its feet with them. A human barely two years old, and it reminded me of nothing so much as an old, arthritic cat.

"It thinks in German," I said, "what words it has."

_A tourist's child_, thought Demetri. That meant a search. The last thing we needed was an international incident that could be traced to our kind. Corin nodded to Chelsea. The boy started to cry as she picked him up—because her hands were cold, of all things. Then there was a twist and a crack, and it was over.

The questioning proceeded as usual from there. Corin could have led the interrogation, but he preferred the physical side of things, holding the victim down and breaking something whenever the need arose. Demetri confirmed which killings Jonas's group had been responsible for; once, in the eighties, Felix had come home to find that a string of killings in Nicaragua had continued in his absence because he'd assumed that only one band of nomads had been responsible. His punishment had been intense. Demetri got Jonas to tell us where the other bodies were, and Corin sent Chelsea and Bella to see that they were hidden properly.

After looking to Corin for permission, Caroly lit the fire. The heads went in first. I breathed gratefully as three sets of screaming voices finally went dead.

I'd been standing behind what was left of Jonas, listening as carefully as I could, but it was definitely easier without those distractions, without—

I held up a hand and Demetri stopped talking. Jonas's neck twitched, as if he had tried to turn around, but that was hard to do without a working trapezius muscle.

"Repeat your previous question," I said to Demetri.

"Did you intend to release one of your humans and allow it to call for help?" he said again.

Jonas repeated his previous answer, a long list of meaningless excuses. At least he wasn't trying to blame it all on his covenmates, but there it was again. That face, that name.

I met Corin's eyes and he nodded. Demetri moved to the side to allow me to crouch in front of our victim. Behind me, I was dimly aware of Caroly coming in through the window, of her and Chelsea bringing in the pieces of the vampire we'd killed together outside, but most of all of Bella, watching me do Aro's will, her mind a mystery.

Jonas was a pathetic sight, far less impressive than he saw himself in his mind's eye. His dark straw hair was mussed and matted. He looked like he'd been turned no earlier than forty, his face lined by years of sun before his new existence had left him pale.

"Do you know who I am?" I asked.

Jonas nodded, "E—Edward of the Volturi."

"Then you know you cannot lie to us." I was exaggerating, but it had the desired effect. I looked like a demon to him.

"Please, I—"

"Who told you to come here?" I asked. In his eyes, I seemed dark and terrifying. Good.

"He didn't offer us anything, I swear!"

"_Who?_"

Jonas swallowed. "Stefan. Stefan the Romanian. Told us you'd lost your edge. Told us we could do what we wanted, even this close to Italy."

"He lied," I snarled.

Jonas's dark red, terrified eyes stayed on me as Demetri asked his next question. I hoped he thought my gift was like a set of fishhooks digging through his mind. I hoped he thought I was like Chelsea.

"What did Stefan tell you?" Demetri said.

"Not anything in particular—"

"He's lying," I said.

"No, I'm only—"

"Jane," said Corin.

Jonas's voice caused the metal stairs to shake. If Corin hadn't broken both his legs, he'd have beaten them against the floor like oars.

"That's enough for now, Jane," said Corin. She only smiled, as if she were tightening a knot. "Jane!"

Jonas gasped, going still. The edges of his bones against his flesh seemed like a relief.

"What did he tell you?" asked Demetri.

Jonas came up with another lie, but the look in my eyes dissuaded him. "He said that the witch twins would not leave Volterra. He said they'd been turned criminal and were confined there."

Demetri and Corin exchanged a look.

"Do we have a traitor?" asked Corin.

"Maybe not," said Demetri. "Maybe someone saw the scar on Heidi's face and asked about it."

"Pity," said Corin with a dark smile, "I like what we do to traitors."

Jonas actually whimpered. It was a repulsive sound in a grown man. "We shall have to take him back with us," I said. Demetri and Corin looked at me. "Master Aro will want the full story." I heard Jonas's thoughts turn optimistic. He was going to live, at least for a few more days, perhaps even find a way to escape before we reached Volterra.

"You won't," I told him. As soon as I caught him thinking about it, I'd tell Corin, and Corin would rip off his legs. There was always the spontaneous escape attempt, but I didn't think Jonas was smart enough for that.

Transporting an unwilling vampire was always complicated. Human forms of transportation such as trains would be out of the question. Corin was pondering making a telephone call to reception and requesting a car—and Rolfe and Felix. Our return to Volterra would take some time, especially with Jane in tow.

I backed away. The meat of the decision had been made, and it was time to let my commander work out the logistics. Jane was still watching Jonas, hoping for another chance at him. Chelsea was showing Caroly how to feed twitching vampire body parts into a fireplace fire. It turned out that Renata and Bella had only trained her for bonfires.

Bella was hovering near the back of the room. She almost seemed human in the way she couldn't quite keep still. And she was looking right at me.

I wanted to apologize—for what I wasn't certain—but that wouldn't do, not kind words and sweetness in front of the prisoner who needed to be kept scared and compliant.

Corin caught me looking at her, noticed the slight shaking of her hands. He met my eyes and thought _Go_ very clearly. He knew this was only Bella's second time out. He knew someone would hit a snag sooner or later. He'd been expecting that it would be Caroly, but she'd impressed him.

I strode toward her as confidently as I could and nodded toward the rear window, hoping that Jonas would think we had business outside. But Bella only stared at me blankly, something I couldn't quite read on her white mask of a face.

I leaned in closer, "Bella, come away," I said quietly. She shook her head from side to side, so slightly that it might have been a twitch. I took her by the arm and guided her toward the far wall. She didn't resist. After I checked to see that Jonas's attention was elsewhere, I picked her up and carried her out.

We walked a few steps, letting the dust of the broken glass fall from our clothes. A million words ran through my head, _Bella, I had to_, I wanted to say, but I didn't even know if that was what was wrong. Carefully, I turned toward her and took both her hands, feeling the stickiness on her fingers that told me she'd done more than her share of the fighting, disabling and dispatching of our prey.

"Tell me," I said quietly, almost in a whisper. "Bella, please tell me."

"You don't know?" she asked. She sounded impossibly tired.

"Bella there are so many things wrong with the past fifteen minutes that I wouldn't know where to start."

She turned her head away. "Her arm?" she asked. "The human."

"They cut it off. Then they pulled out the blood and made her watch," I said.

"But doesn't that waste it?" Bella clapped her hands over her mouth. "That's not what I mean!" she said. "I mean doesn't it—?"

She had meant it. The heady scent of human blood had filled that cabin. I'd started thinking of food as well. But under other circumstances she'd have thought of the cruelty; that was what she was trying to say. She breathed the clear night air in and out, calming herself. "And what did she say?" she asked me. "To Corin."

"She thanked him for saving her."

The next instant, Bella's arms were around my waist, her face pressed hard against my shoulder, as if she knew she has to muffle the sounds. I put my arms around her because I could not do anything else.

A moment passed and she went quiet. "We were never really coming here to help them, were we?" she said.

"No," I told her. "But all the others these four would have gotten—the next ones. We helped those."

"Those people. This happened because Jane is sick?"

"Yes," I said. There might have been nomads in this part of Europe anyway, but they would not have acted so blatantly. They would not have killed so many or terrorized them first. "Word got out somehow," I told her. "Some vampires respect the law for its own sake, but many only do so out of fear of punishment. If they hear the Volturi are weak, that the status quo is breaking, they'll do whatever they like." Even capture and torture a young woman and a two-year-old baby.

Bella was looking straight up at the stars, lips pressed together as if against tears as her shoulders shook. For the boy. For the woman. For innocent lives.

"Bella," I whispered, pressing my kiss to her forehead, her cheeks. "Sometimes there's nothing anyone can do," I said. "We will try to make Jane well, and if we cannot, we'll show the world that the Volturi are strong without her." She looked at me with a sadness as deep as the ocean. "We _will_ keep this from happening again," I promised her. And then, because it was the first time I'd been truly sure since the day she'd woken up as one of my kind, I smoothed her hair back from her face and said, "I love you _so _much."

"I just want to go home, Edward," she said. "I _just_ wanted to go home."

"I know," I answered. "I do too." And there was no dissembling this time. I meant our real home, with Carlisle. "But every minute we are here, we will make the best of it."

She looked up at me and nodded, face terribly empty.

Another scream came from inside the house.

"It's all right," I said. "It was the criminal."

Bella nodded again. "Everything's all right."

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That'll teach me to look things up on TwiWiki. I just wanted to find out what he looked like, but Corin's a chick?! I've decided not to hit TwiWiki any more. Here, canon is what's stated in the books and no more. Corin is a dude, Renata is black, Marcus' power is not limited to romantic relationships, the wives are in the tower because they're senile and paranoid and if S. Meyer wants me to think otherwise she is well within her rights to finish _Midnight Sun_. (Yes, I figure some of the stuff on TwiWiki comes from interviews. I also know how often authors change their interview tack.)

drf24


	38. Ch 37 Forgiven

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

Camilla10, as the 500th reviewer, you may ask a boon of me. By the laws of fanfiction I must grant it unless I have something better to do or I forget.

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"I wondered if I was a monster. Not the kind that he thought he was, but the real kind. The kind that hurt people. The kind that had no limits when it came to what they wanted." –Bella, _Eclipse_

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It was a long trip back to Volterra. We couldn't keep our prisoner terrified forever, and Corin turned out to be more averse to the idea of disassembling him than I had thought. Fortunately, none of us needed to sleep. We avoided human roads and forms of transit at all hours. When we reached Italy, Corin had Demetri phone the compound, speaking carefully and in code, to request a car. We spent some tense hours on the outskirts of a small town until Felix and Rolfe showed up in a nondescript sedan with heavily tinted windows and a human driver.

Felix took custody of Janus with all the gentleness I'd come to expect from him. He relayed the order that our prisoner and Chelsea were to come with them back to Volterra, and the remaining six of us were to make our way back as usual. This worried me. Chelsea hadn't exactly been doing a wonderful job of keeping Jane in line, but I didn't want to do this without her either. Still, I could do nothing but wonder. Objections were outside my job description.

Bella hardly spoke the whole way.

Despite Demetri and Corin's best efforts, we found ourselves waiting out the day in the Riserva. I didn't mind. I had good memories of the place. But I doubted I would get any more that day.

"Is Bella still sad?" Caroly whispered to me, the innocence of the question grotesque against her ghoulish memory of our mission. "Does she feel sorry for the little boy?"

I nodded tightly.

Caroly sat down beside me, a dozen questions rising in her thoughts. I chose one and answered it.

"You've done well, Caroly," I said.

"Thank you," she said. _I tried so hard_ echoing in her mind. Renata would be proud, she thought. She'd have things to tell Renata. Caroly smiled. Renata did love to gossip, and for once, Caroly would be what she talked about. It would be like giving Renata a present.

On one level, it was good that Caroly wanted my approval. On the other, Aro would not be pleased. The syringe turning killed much of the intimacy of the act. I'd been grateful for that at the time, but Caroly wasn't stupid. She knew I was her maker, and she wanted a connection.

_There must be no converts_, I remembered. Aro tolerated Bella and me—for now. There was no telling how he'd react if I tried to convince other Volturi to give up our traditional food source.

"My—" I stopped before I called Carlisle "father." "My own maker has excellent control in the presence of blood," I said. "He can even work as a doctor."

Caroly frowned. She pictured Adrienne and me reattaching Richard's finger. Renata had told her about all Jane's misadventures. She wondered if there had been any blood, if the injuries we'd inflicted on Janus and his coven had been atypical.

I shook my head. "With humans," I said. "His patients are mostly humans."

She looked away. "How does that work?" she asked.

_He uses his centuries to do good. He is kind—very kind. He showed me what all of us could become if we cultivated ourselves._

"They complain that his hands are cold," I said.

She smiled. I'd made a joke. Her maker had made her smile.

Aro wouldn't like it, but it looked like it wasn't up to him.

Right now Caroly was wondering what going back would feel like. Would anyone be there to greet them when they did? She hadn't been out of her cell enough to know.

"No," I told her, allowing myself half a smile. "We're too cool for that. We just come home with no fuss."

Caroly looked at me, blinking. As far as she could remember, I'd never responded to her thoughts in conversation before, and she was not used to it. She'd have to get used to being around gifted members of the guard. It was starting to seem as though her gift, if she had one, would be subtle, like Corin's. There might never be a way to tell for sure unless Eleazar came to visit, and I doubted he would.

I heard a twig snap off to the right. Corin looked up as well, displeased. I wanted to tell Bella to stop pacing, but I wasn't sure if speaking to her would set her off again. Snapping a twig was better than weeping.

Bella hadn't seemed to react to what I'd told her outside the house. I couldn't help watching her, wondering what she was thinking. It was selfish of me. We'd just witnessed the death of a terrorized woman and a kidnapped boy, not to mention the possible opening throes of the downfall of our world. Of course she was more preoccupied with those things than with the fact that I'd said I loved her. She was Bella. She always put herself last.

A rather selfish part of me reminded me that she didn't always put _me_ last. I figured I could let that poor boy and woman have her attention. It wasn't as if they would have anyone else's. Their bodies would probably never be found. I felt a pang. At least my family knew where I was.

As we returned to Volterra, in the back of my mind, I felt something nagging at me, something that I'd once wanted. It took me halfway to the compound to remember quite what it was. Then I memorized the shadow-path that we were taking into the city. The possibility that Bella and I would be able to use it to escape was so remote as to be laughable, but it might be useful in the discharging of my duties one day.

I could feel Bella beside me, her shoulder barely brushing my arm as we walked through reception. I wondered if she thought it was subtle. It wasn't; Demetri and Corin had both noticed her doing it. I hadn't said anything. I didn't want her to stop.

I nodded to the human receptionist at the desk and headed down the hall to wait. Even if Aro had already read and disposed of Janus, he and Caius would want a debriefing from Corin with all of his team present. I pushed my mind forward into the compound, frowning.

_What is it?_ asked Demetri.

"There should be more people in the feasting hall," I said. An official report of Romanian activity was a serious matter, fit for the whole coven to hear. I tried to hear if Janus had been executed yet, but I could not.

Demetri looked straight ahead for a moment. _Something else must be going on, then_, he thought. Not Janus's execution, he was sure. Whether they'd done it right away or waited for us, it would have been in the feasting hall, as usual.

There were a few shifting images, a shard of a word here and there. "Something happened," I said. "Something wrong." But it had been hours ago, at least. No one was thinking of it, not directly.

I felt Bella's fingers tighten on my arm. Absently, I put my free hand on top of hers.

There was a gentle tap of a woman's shoes on the floor. I looked up to see that Renata had come to collect Caroly. It seemed that the masters were fine with sending newborns into combat but still a bit squeamish about being in their presence personally.

_Oh..._ the newborn was disappointed. She'd wanted to make her first report with the rest of us, just like a real member of the guard.

"Real members of the guard do as the masters say," I told her.

She ducked her head. "You're right," she said.

"There will be other missions," I told her, and God help me but she looked pleased as she crossed the room toward Renata, like an A student who'd just won the science fair.

From the corner of my eye, I saw her turn her head to the side, like a squirrel trying to figure out a new bird feeder. _That's not quite right_, thought Caroly. Something was off. Something about Renata.

I looked myself. It was the smile. Too wide. Almost forced, except with an odd blankness behind it. I flicked my eyes toward Bella. She'd seen it too.

Renata's thoughts were not revealing. She had come to return Caroly to her cell. It was a strange feeling. Caroly wasn't mine, not the way I was Carlisle's, but I was proud of her. I'd helped make her, and she'd done well. Any missions she completed, any humans she saved, I'd be part of that. It was foolish, I supposed. Bella and Renata had had far more to do with Caroly's success on this mission than I had, but I couldn't help feeling the way I did.

Caroly and Renata were nattering at each other like a pair of geese amiably nibbling mites from each other's necks. Renata ushered Caroly away with one hand across her back, confident that she could get the newborn to return to her cell. Strange. She was usually at least a little afraid.

I caught a flash of something in Demetri's mind as he figured it out and just as quickly decided to hide it from me. Something unpleasant. Something about cleaning up someone else's mess. I had a funny feeling that that someone was me. Demetri met my eyes and then looked away, but as Caroly caught his eye, he couldn't help remembering.

I actually turned around mid-stride.

"Marcell?" I asked.

Demetri stopped walking. With one foot in front of the other, he slowly nodded his light brown head. Then he kept moving.

"What is it?" Bella asked. I shook my head. I wasn't sure that I knew. It had come out of nowhere. "Did something happen to Marcell?" she asked.

Caroly looked over at us and then back to Renata. She didn't like that Bella was upset, but the idea of Marcell in harm did not seem to trouble her. I turned back to Bella, wide amber eyes. "Bella, I think Marcell's been—"

"Marcell was not useful," Renata said, as if describing the menu for a picnic.

Bella was across the room before I could breathe, gripping Renata hard on the arm.

"Ow!" Renata cried. "Bella, let go!"

"I'm sorry," Bella said, taking a step away. "I'm worried about our boy is all. You remember that? You like to call him our boy."

Renata frowned, as if she couldn't remember. She could see Marcell's face in her head, but it didn't seem to have any meaning for her any more. There were other memories too. Renata could recall pressing her forehead against both folded arms as her shoulders shook hard. She could remember Master Caius telling someone to shut that racket up. Then Chelsea had come up behind her, and...

I felt strangely calm, far calmer than I'd expected to.

Demetri had paused, watching us over his shoulder. Corin was paying attention as well. _The masters aren't ready for us yet,_ Demetri thought clearly. _Do what you have to do and then come back_.

_Thank you_. He couldn't hear me, but that did not matter.

"Bella," I said quietly, touching the upper part of her sleeve with one hand. "Bella, come away."

She nodded dumbly, still looking at Renata.

She looked a little vacant-eyed, Renata. Even Caroly had noticed. I felt a surge of something that I could only call affection. Renata hadn't given up her connection to Marcell lightly. Chelsea had had to dig it out, and she'd probably done some damage in the process. Renata, weak and timid little Renata, had fought for it, and she hadn't even known anything was happening. She was a good person. Or she had been. We'd have to see.

"They killed him, didn't they?" Bella whispered as we ducked into the hallway. I checked, as I'd checked a hundred times, for thoughts within earshot. Nothing. We were safe as long as we kept it low.

"Yes," I said.

"And Chelsea did something to Renata."

"She cut her tie to him, yes."

"Damn that—" Bella stopped herself. She breathed in and out through her nose. "I can't even say it, can I?" she asked.

"It probably wouldn't be a good idea," I answered.

Bella shook his head. "Should I even ask why they did it?"

"He wasn't going to get better," I answered. "That's what Demetri thinks, anyway. Every human they bring here on feeding days is a risk, and newborns eat more than most. He wasn't worth the investment, so Caius had him liquidated. And..."

I leaned back.

Oh no...

"What is it?" Bella asked. "I'm going to freak right the heck out in about a minute, so I've got to hear it all now."

"Bella I think I might have..." I closed my eyes. "When Jane was watching over Marcell, she kept talking about him. I remember thinking that something about him might have especially irritated her." I met her eyes. "It was only in passing, Bella. I didn't really think he was causing her illness."

Her face cleared. "You think Aro got the idea from you." She touched the side of my face. "Edward, this isn't your fault. I swear to you it isn't." But I could see the pain on her face, and I knew she was lying.

"You didn't mean for this to happen," she said. "You were just trying to find out what was wrong with Jane." She seemed to flinch as she said it. "This is on Caius and Aro; they're the ones who decided to do it."

"Bella," I said with my eyes pressed shut, "Bella, you know that isn't true."

I felt her hands go still, as if she'd truly turned to stone.

"Bella, I was careless, and that's my fault. Even if I didn't entirely know what I was doing, even if someone else performed the act, I did play some role in it. I deserve _some_ of the guilt."

She let go of my hands. I watched her arms drift back to her sides.

"I don't mean that no one else is to blame," I said. She'd said that I shouldn't torture myself over this, and she was right. I _would_, but she was still right. "There's Caius, who gave the order," I listed. This was dangerous, but it looked like it needed to be done. "There's Felix, who carried it out. There's Alec, who anesthetized Marcell beforehand," though that might have been a mercy.

I shook my head. "And there's Jane's illness, but there's no telling what's causing that." I put my hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. She blinked as she looked away, as if she were remembering tears. "I'm not at the top of my list of things at fault for Marcell's death, but of all the things on it, it's the only one I can control. What could _I_ have done differently? That's what I think about."

She didn't say anything, eyes focused somewhere around the collar of my shirt.

"Look at you," I said softly. "You blame yourself too, don't you?" She looked up at me, almost frightened, but I smiled as gently as I could. "You're a good person," I said. "You're wondering about a thousand things that you did or didn't do that might have made a difference. And why not? That's what good people do."

In Demetri's thoughts, I heard the doors begin to open.

"They need us," I whispered. "We can't make them wait."

She nodded. At least she couldn't cry for real. At least her eyes and skin wouldn't turn red, showing what she felt. Her face could be as impassible as her mind if she'd let it.

Bella and I made it through the door before it shut. It was just as well. Aside from Caroly, we were the lowest ranking members of our team. Under typical circumstances, all we'd have to do would be to stand behind Corin while he told the masters what had happened, but what with the Romanian involvement and Chelsea's and my special assignment regarding Jane, I expected that one or both of us would have cause to speak.

The air was still sweet with smoke, _that_ kind of smoke. It seemed we'd missed the show. But had Janus or Marcell been the star?

When we'd first gotten home—before I'd learned about Marcell—I'd been curious about what had been done with Jonas, and what impression his revelations had made. I was sure that Aro would have learned more from him than I had about his connections with the Romanians. There would be more missions to come, in Croatia and in other places.

If this had been a true medieval castle, everyone would have been busy readying horses and scrubbing the rust from weapons and equipment. Today, increased hostilities meant collecting information. We needed no armor. We carried our weapons on our skin.

The air inside the audience chamber seemed electrified as Corin approached the thrones and bent the knee, with a current running from Caius to Aro to Jane to the center of the room.

Aro's eyes lingered on Jane, taking in her hands, restless as spiders, her hair sticking out like straw, and the undertow of emotions behind her eyes. He'd had Chelsea's memories, I saw, but he'd held out hope. Without moving, he looked at me. _Well?_ he asked, not waiting for Corin to speak first.

Beside him, Alec's thoughts were wordless but on the same vein. I looked to Jane to show that I'd understood their question. Then I just barely shook my head.

Aro's jaw moved, suggesting the teeth inside his mouth. My hand tightened on Bella's arm. I'd failed him. I hadn't just been part of a failed mission, _I_ had failed him. I wasn't Jasper, but I knew anger when I heard thoughts jabbing against each other like knives.

"Well, my dear ones," he said, voice flickering with cheerfulness like a silk scarf tied around an axe, "I send you out to deal with a small band of impudent nomads and you make me a gift of a traitor."

"It was our pleasure, Masters," said Corin, rising to take Aro's offered hand.

I watched as Aro absorbed our journey. He would do so again, from me, from Demetri, from Chelsea. I'd inadvertently taught him the value of multiple perspectives.

Aro retreated to his throne as Corin continued the story of our mission out loud for the benefit of Ciaus and Marcus and tradition. I noticed Caius's eyes lingering on Jane.

_She is not better_, he thought. He'd never really believed that getting her out of the house would help much. _And the boy has learned nothing or he would not look so frightened._ I tried not to react visibly. I had learned nothing. I was frightened.

I was still watching Aro when Caius raised his voice.

"And Bella—" I felt her start at her name. "—what of Caroly?"

She looked at Corin and then at me, then back at Caius. I should have expected this. I should have warned her. She'd been Caroly's keeper, and they wanted a report.

"Caroly ...did well," she said. I squeezed her hand, hard enough to hurt. "Caroly did well, masters," she corrected herself before Caius's thoughts could darken further. "She followed orders, and she stayed disciplined, and she did not let our prisoner get away," she said lamely.

Marcus folded his hands in his lap and watched her expectantly. They wanted more.

Bella licked her lips. "Caroly kept control of herself even though that cabin was full of blood," she said, exaggerating only slightly. "She ran down one of the criminals—one of the traitors—by herself and disabled him. She—" Bella looked left and right. "—she discharged her duty without flinching."

Odd. I was pleased, of course, but it wasn't like Bella to take formal matters so seriously. She'd never concealed her contempt for our masters so well. It was as if—

Caius smiled slightly. _Good. I'll tell Felix not to dispatch the female. We may as well keep her on as Adrienne's replacement._

I felt a chill run through my bones as I realized where Bella's enthusiasm had come from.

"What a shame," said Caius, rising to his feet, fingers idly playing around his firelighter. I swallowed. Janus's execution must have been a sight to see if he'd taken it out of storage. The cursed thing was difficult to recharge and maintain. "What a shame that war may be coming between us and our ancient enemies, and we have no newborn army to oppose them," he said looking pointedly at me at the last minute.

He hadn't asked me a question, so I said nothing.

Corin finished his report, and Aro called me forward. He put his hand on my arm, lightly, absorbing every thought and detail of our journey. Behind me, I could hear Chelsea running through different things to say—how she'd tried, how she'd never tired in her attempts to bring Jane to heel. But she knew what we were in for, her and me.

What could I possibly tell them? That this wasn't my fault? Aro already knew that, or knew enough to draw that conclusion on his own if he were of a mind to. We both knew he wasn't. I had nothing to give them but excuses.

Marcus would be no help. He enjoyed the dynamic between Bella and me, but I had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't enjoy it any less if I suffered grievous bodily harm at his brother's hands.

Failure was a punishable offense in Volterra. Unfortunately, the primary mode of punishment was Jane. The best available substitute would probably be some form of public humiliation, possibly involving a beating by Felix in front of—

I cursed myself for not avoiding the thought. Now I was giving Aro ideas.

_If you had been so diligent in your care of Jane, you might have had no cause to fear my ideas,_ Aro thought toward me. He was still in denial.

_Mind yourself, Edward_, he thought warningly.

_It's true_. It was.

Aro warned me again, without words this time.

_It was ...exactly as you said,_ I thought, trying to drive my mind in a less dangerous direction. _Chelsea seemed to latch on to Jane's mind but it wouldn't take._ I wished I hadn't thought so, but I did: _It was not Chelsea's fault._ I pictured the evil harridan behind me, wringing her hands for fear of punishment. I would like to think that I would have admitted it, even though it was true. I would like to think that I would not have kept silent and watched her burn beside me, solely because I hated her. But then, women I hated had not been doing so well lately.

Aro's thoughts were like steel, lashing at me in the quiet of my mind. _You resent the rest of the guard. You fail to produce calm newborns for me. You fail to discover the source of Jane's illness. You prevent me from acquiring—_ here his thoughts grew strange, as if I could no longer hear them, but this only seemed to make him angrier. I could see myself in his perception, a shiny, delightful toy that had cost so much and turned out to be ugly and useless. Worse, I was spreading onto all the rest of his collection: Adrienne was gone, and Jane was broken.

_What am I to do with you, Edward?_

_Let me go,_ I thought. I'd never have said it out loud, but it was always on my mind, and I couldn't filter it out. Aro was in no mood to forgive me for my ingratitude. _If you don't want me, then just let me go._ I wanted so badly to see Esme and Emmett and Carlisle—

Aro moved faster than could have been possible, the instant he thought of it, his hands were around my throat, clenching hard enough to grind bone. "Master!" Jane called out, taking a step toward us. _Master, do you want me to hurt him?_ she thought with a dark eagerness that drove down like the blow of a hammer how unstable she'd become. Her thoughts flowed through me into Aro and he began to snarl. But he relaxed his grip, letting his hand shift back to my shoulder as I staggered but couldn't manage to rise from my knees.

Demetri's thought flared, but only for a second as Corin wondered _What was that for?_ From his perspective, I'd done my job without complaint.

Corin and Demetri and even Alec were wondering what had just happened. Demetri was wondering if the master had lost his mind. He would have to do some damage control. He would have to explain once I was gone, and it would help if he did so rationally. A formal punishment.

_Is that all you can do, Edward?_ Aro thought down at me, thoughts no less dark for being calm. _Is that truly the only thing of any worth you have for me?_ He'd had hopes, I saw. He'd had such high hopes. I'd been meant to bind the present to his will. I'd been meant to be at his left hand.

"My dear ones, how regrettable that the affairs of the world have taken such a turn," he said. "Chelsea, do go and fetch Felix, Heidi and Afton. We have things to discuss with them. Demetri, Corin, you may remain." His clouded eyes fell on Jane, who started muttering angrily at the dust motes under her breath. I watched his throat flex as he swallowed. "Jane is dismissed."

They were going to discuss strategies, I saw. Demetri and Corin acted as strategists, the others as enforcers. "And Chelsea," said Aro. "Do return in perhaps an hour. I have matters to discuss with you and Edward."

Chelsea swallowed hard, her face like ash. She knew what was coming. She knew it as well as I did.

Aro was watching Alec lead Jane out of the room by her elbow, but his thoughts were on me, and unmistakable in their anger.

_Get out of my sight_.

He had the satisfaction of watching me stumble as I turned away. I had never known him to be this angry, not even when—I grabbed the sides of my head. Not even when—

I felt a set of fingers close on my arm and pull me toward the door. I had gone mad. Demetri was right; it was a disease of the gifted. Jane had got it and I had caught it from her and now I had to be led away.

Bella seemed calmer as the door closed behind us, but perhaps it was only because I was so very far from calm. I must have seemed like a thrumming Tesla coil. I barely knew where I was putting my feet, but she guided me to the upper library. It was blessedly empty.

"That ...could have gone worse," she said at last.

I shot her a look. It must have been horrible because she turned away.

"I'm sorry," I said. "You're only trying to help." I touched my throat. At least my voice still worked. "If he could have, he'd have set Jane on me then and there. Now he's going to come up with something." Aro was still rational enough to think that a strategy session had to take precedence over showing the coven what happened to a vampire who failed in his duty. Jane had got the coven's blood up. If he told them that my task had been to cure her, they might even forgive him for not punishing her. And they would relish whatever Aro did to me. Aro knew all my deepest fears—wiping out the Cullen family on trumped up charges, harming Bella, forcing me to bring in humans for the feasts—but he also had a great deal of imagination. Whatever he did would be something that I had not thought of.

"One does not fail the masters, Bella," I said. "He's not going to be kind."

"Is this because Jane is sick?" she asked, voice full of fear.

I shook my head. "That's not why. It's that he told me to do something and I could not do it." I closed my eyes. "And I thought about Carlisle." This situation was a perfect storm of Aro's weaknesses, Jane, jealousy, the Romanians. "Aro can't stand it, Bella. It's like he's gone mad."

"Will he kill you for it?" she asked tightly.

"He'll make an example," I said. It would be a show, something to be remembered for years. If I lived, I'd live as a reminder.

Bella stopped me, pulling on my arm so hard that I stumbled, "Does that mean he won't kill you?" she demanded.

I opened my mouth to lie. _Just tell her_, I said. She needed to know. But my lower lip shook and I couldn't make the words come out.

I shouldn't have been sad about it. It was what I'd come to Italy for in the first place, after all. I should have been sad that she'd lost her humanity and freedom. I should have been sad that my family was in danger. I shouldn't have been sad that I was going to die and that it would hurt. If I'd been my old self, I wouldn't have. Carlisle's son wouldn't have cared, but Volterra had finally made a coward of me.

Her arms were around my waist and her lips pressed against my shoulder. I held her the way she was holding me, and I felt tall and strong—and the fact that she'd chosen me finally made sense. I buried my face in her hair and breathed in.

_When I'm gone, Bella, run away._ Demetri could not find her. _Run away, but don't go home_. To Carlisle and Esme. Demetri could find them. Only I couldn't say it out loud. It was treason.

This would be my punishment, I realized. This was what made my life bearable; he would take it away from me. Aro wouldn't kill me, but he would cost me both arms or my tongue or part of my brain. He'd fix me so that I could never do this or feel this way ever again.

"I love you," I said, just in case I never got to say it again.

"I know," she said.

I ran my fingers over her hair—I might not have fingers tomorrow.

She leaned forward and kissed me. I kissed her back. I might not have lips tomorrow. She closed the space between us and slipped her arms around my neck, graceful as a swan. Her scent filled my mind, pushing everything else away.

Aro was going to punish me, but all his actions had a certain elegance. I doubted he would be so crude as to cost me any other part belonging to a man, but... I shook my head. I couldn't possibly be entertaining the thought of—

"Edward," she whispered against my cheek like a plea, like a prayer. Had she undone the top buttons of her dress or had I? It didn't matter. She was the one guiding my hands. God had never made anything that felt this good. Nothing real could possibly make those sounds in the back of her throat, sounds saying that she liked my hands and my skin and my heart.

Carlisle had been right. He was always right. He'd told me that just because we didn't have a ceremony didn't mean we couldn't be man and wife. Carlisle had said it, I thought between kisses, so perhaps that made it all right.

I decided then. I'd do what I should have done that golden day in the Riserva—give her what she wanted for as long as she wanted it. I'd kiss her until she couldn't breathe and then I'd take my chance. Who knew when we'd get another one? Just the thought of her smooth legs wrapping around me as I ...it was enough to make me forget what was coming for me.

"Tell me again," she murmured.

"I love you," I said.

"No matter what I did?" she said, voice breaking on the last word.

I pulled back, staring at her. My hands went to her shoulders. "What could you have done?" I asked.

I wouldn't have believed it. She looked worse than she had that day in the cell, when she'd confessed to her first murder. Her bottom lip shook. "Something awful," she breathed.

I shook my head. "Bella, you'd never hurt anyone, not unless they make you."

She looked away. "And that's why you love me? Because I don't hurt anyone?"

"Of course," I said, smiling with the certainty of it. "You have a beautiful—" the was in the air before I realized I'd said it, before I realized I _knew_ it "—soul." I almost felt like laughing. I'd gone mad. I'd gone wonderfully, transcendently mad, and I could finally see the real truth. I could never have believed it of myself, not ever. How could she be _Bella_ without her soul? Yet here she was.

She licked her lips, "But I would, Edward. I would hurt so many people if it got us out of here." The words tumbled out of her like hot acid, scalding the air. But they could not scald me.

"You're lying," I said, still smiling. I could tell.

"I'm not," she said.

"You are," I said seriously, gently squeezing her shoulders. "You're a good person. You don't have it in you. Lots of people think they can do bad things until they're actually faced with the consequences. Then they turn back." There were plenty of wicked people in the world, but how many high school boys had I known who'd sworn that they'd beat a rival to death or make their girlfriends give in? At the sight of real blood or the thought of making her cry, their fantasies evaporated like mist.

She closed her eyes and her hands started to shake. "What if Aro found out what really made Jane sick? Then he'd let you off?"

I grabbed her hands with both of mine, holding her still. There was no hope of a revelation at this point. If neither Aro nor Chelsea nor myself could figure it out, then no one else in Volterra had a chance. But if someone did? "There's no way to tell, Bella. Maybe."

She tugged free and cupped my face in her hands. "Edward, you know him better than I do, as well as anyone. I need you to concentrate. Would he forgive you if he found out what was really wrong with Jane?"

I frowned, wondering where this was coming from. Did she know something? Did she know someone who knew something? "If he had someone else to blame for Jane's illness," I said carefully, feeling out the melody one plucked string at a time, "or—Aro's fickle, if he even had something else to focus on—then he would still punish me, but it would be ordinary." It would be like what Caius did to Afton when we came back from China without the artwork he'd wanted. "Something that wouldn't put me out of commission. I'd get a chance to go on other missions, redeem myself."

She licked her lips, looking away for a minute. "I love you too, you know that, right? You _really_ know it?"

I covered her left hand in one of mine. "I do," I said. It was a good day for truths.

"Everything will be okay," she told me.

I closed my eyes. Even through all this, it felt good to feel her against my skin. "How can you know?"

"Because I need it to be," she said.

I smiled. "Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat the vaulty heaven so high above our heads," I told her, watching to see if she remembered. Another day, another world, sitting on Charlie's couch and watching shadows on a screen. That and a thousand other missed opportunities. "I have more care to stay than will to go." _Come, death, and welcome._ "Juliet wills it so."

"How is it, my soul?" I said, bringing her hand up to my lips and kissing her knuckles until she gave me a sad smile.

_You can do better than that, Bella,_ I thought, kissing each finger in turn. This could be our only time together, and I wanted her smiling. She bit her lips and the corners of her mouth turned up, so I kissed all the way to her wrist, over the smooth skin, over the scar from—

I drew back again, blinking at her wrist.

"Edward?" she asked, fingers moving to cup the back of my neck. "What is it?"

I ran the pad of my thumb across the scar, as I remembered what the master had said about Bella.

Aro had been wrong.

Caius had been wrong.

I had been wrong.

_"For her,"_ Marcus had believed, _"it was not so great of a change."_

"Edward?" she asked.

I didn't answer, but I had an answer. I finally had an answer.

"I know why you kept your mind after you were turned," I said, turning her wrist so that she could see the smooth, crescent-shaped mark where James had bitten her on that horrible night in Phoenix. He'd burned, but she'd been the one to rise from the ashes. It had been so slight that no one had noticed, not even the wolves, but it had happened. It had to have happened.

"It was because you'd done it before," I said.

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The hallways dissolved in front of us, and we were hurrying down the stairs before I even realized I'd moved. By the time I turned around, I noticed that she'd had the presence of mind to put her clothes in order. I should have felt embarrassed. I really should have, but the possibility that I might escape Aro's wrath left room for nothing else.

"Do you really think that could be it?" she asked.

I nodded. I was sure. Of course, I had to be more persuasive than I'd ever been in my life if I was to avoid whatever Aro had planned for me. "It all fits," I said. "It's not that you knew what you were getting into—both Marcell and Caroly knew almost as much as you did. We can't copy your attitude; we can't copy the fact that you're my singer. This is all that's left." I rubbed her wrist again. "You always said your scar felt cold. Does it feel cold now?"

She shook her head. No, she wouldn't have felt hot or cold, not since the turning.

My mind raced. This would only save me if it pleased the masters, and there was no way that any vampire in the city but me would have the control to suck out someone's blood safely, even if the blood was tainted with another vampire's venom. I'd come closer to killing Bella on that day than I ever wanted to think about. There was always Carlisle, but even if Aro could be persuaded to ask him for a favor, he probably wouldn't agree to participate in an experiment like this one.

"What will happen?" she asked me. I was still holding her wrist in that awkward position. I would have been dragging her if she hadn't kept up. "Edward, this isn't what Aro wanted. He wanted you to find out what was wrong with Jane—"

"This will help," I said, not looking up. "Part of the problem with Jane is that it has made the Volturi look weak. If we're the only ones with calm newborns—" I laughed. "Then we're not weak."

"Is it enough?" Bella asked, eyes like yellow flames. "Will it save you?"

"It'll certainly save Charlie and Renee," I said. Aro would have no need of them if he could get what he wanted more easily.

"_Will it save you?_" she demanded.

"Bella, I do not know. It might." I breathed in and out. "Now come with me. We have to play this right."

I pulled her along behind me and put my mind back to the task. It could be a mechanical apparatus of some kind, something that could draw out the envenomed blood... I closed my eyes, sketching heavily in my mind. Yes... It would be possible to build something using existing medical equipment. It would be expensive, but it might work.

Yes, there were so many variables, a real experimental process to optimize. Aro would love it. I polished and packaged the idea, sprinkling it with glittering questions. When Aro read this in my thoughts, he would love it.

"Sir!" The receptionist rose to her feet as we barged past. "Do not go in there!"

The doors to the audience hall gave way to us with a groan, and I moved into the audience chamber, Bella's boots pattering against the ground as she kept my pace.

We caused a bit of a stir.

_What...?_ Heidi couldn't understand why we were here.

_Is he out of his mind?_ thought Demetri.

I actually smiled at him. _By heaven, yes,_ I replied.

Aro was literally too angry to form words, but I had no time or chances for doubt.

"Edward," Caius barked. "You were not summoned! We must plan for the safety of the coven!"

"I apologize, Master Caius," I said, pointedly avoiding Aro's sight. The man was a hair's breadth from tearing me apart himself. "My news may be relevant to that."

My words hung in the air. I had to allow Aro to grow calm. This would only work if he were calm enough to understand how important it was.

Carefully, I took Bella by the wrist and led her forward.

"I know why she is calm, Masters, I said." Another moment for that to sink in. "And it is something we can replicate."

Bella looked at me, then, following my lead with the insight of an angel, stepped forward to show Caius her scar.

I could feel Aro's mind changing, like a storm that had ceased for only a moment. I explained quickly.

Without a word, Aro thrust his arm forward, as if to beat the truth from me. I took his hand willingly, looking him in the eye as he read my entire hypothesis—and what I'd been doing when I figured it out, but there was no help for that.

He let go of my hand slowly, eying me with profound distrust.

_Well then_, he said. _If this were a stunt to save his own skin, he would not have brought the girl._ His eyes narrowed. _Or perhaps he would have. He truly fears me. It seems that Carlisle's boy does his best work under threat._

He met my eyes and thought deliberately this time. _Remember that, Edward Cullen._ His eyes turned to Bella. _And remember, she will share your punishment._

I nodded tightly. I would remember. I promised I would.

"Begin immediately," he said. "Choose any of the human staff. It does not matter."

I turned quickly, giving a tight bow, and pulled Bella along behind me. As we left, I could hear Caius saying, "This may change our strategy, if it is successful."

"It will be successful, Brother," I heard Aro answer. "But only if—" and I lost the rest.

The receptionist got another shock as we banged back into her lobby. That woman was no Gianna.

"Where are we going?" asked Bella.

"Requisitions," I said. "There's a medical supply shop off the square but it won't have everything I need." My mind raced. I could figure out what equipment might work, but how to put it all together? Ordinarily, we'd conceal these purchases, but how to do it quickly? Have different members of the staff accept home delivery of different components? No, mail order would take time, and some of these machines were hospital-quality. Theft, perhaps? From the hospital? No, it would have to be from another city, trucked in tonight. How many other members of the guard could I commandeer for the job? I knew my way around a hospital well enough. I should probably go myself. I swallowed, realizing that I'd be leading my first team.

"Is he going to let you off?" Bella asked intently. "Is it enough?"

"Maybe. It has to work," I answered. "At the absolute least, it'll give him time to cool down." In this moment, I couldn't be burdened with trying to predict Aro's moves. I needed everything I had for serving his will.

"Would it help if he also punished Jane?" Bella interrupted.

"It would help," I admitted, "but he'll never agree to harm her."

"What if he didn't have to?"

I stopped, looking her in the eye.

She gave a little smile. "I have an idea," she said.

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I worked as fast as I could. The tricky part was building an apparatus that could provide suction through an existing wound. Then I realized that if I combined the needles from Caroly's turning with the right kind of aspirator, I could both administer and remove venom with a single cut. There were a thousand variables—source of the vampire venom, duration of exposure, the patient's heart rate at the time of exposure, and the length of time between exposure and true turning. Then there was the fact that Bella must have been exposed to at least some of my own venom back in Phoenix. Had that sensitized her to my venom in particular, or would any vampire have done? All of those could be worked out in time.

Which, for once, we did not have.

Today was phase one, trial one. And I did not expect that I would have a chance to conduct a trial two. I'd pulled a random human from accounting. I was to inject him with venom, which I would then draw out mechanically. Then we would wait three weeks—Bella had waited a year, but Aro had no time for that—and inject him again, this time to the heart, like I had with Caroly.

It would have made more sense to do this privately. The human—Adalgiso, Adalfieri, I would learn his name if he lived—would _remain_ human for the next three weeks, leaving the compound during the day, gossiping with his friends, logging on to the Internet from his apartment. At the very least, we could expect that by the week's end, every human in the compound would know that becoming a vampire hurt like hell. Then there was the possibility of complications. What if he collapsed—or worse, turned—in the middle of a grocery store?

Our test subject was waiting in reception. Aro had a small announcement before we began.

"Jane will be banned from all feasts!" his voice sailed over the dozens of hooded heads. A rippled whisper ran through the crowd around us as I gripped Bella's hand.

_How is she going to eat?_

_If that gets her private meals, perhaps I should lay into a few of the guard myself._

"Because she attacked one of her own coven for the sake of gluttony," Aro continued, "she will subsist on animal blood until we decide that she is forgiven."

There was another murmur through the crowd. There were no words in it, just a murmuring hiss of mockery and smugness. Some of them even thought that the "we" meant that forgiving Jane would be a collective decision. Jane, twitching like a marionette in the center of the room, gave out a tiny screech. The thought of harming, Aro, however, did not cross her mind. Unbalanced or not, he was her center.

_Animal blood? That softens the brains. It'll only make her worse._

_Disgusting..._

_I wonder if her eyes will turn to pus like the other two._

_Little witch has to eat pigs?_ Heidi's lip curled in a smile, which she quickly wiped clean. A million creative taunts, and she would never have the courage to use them.

It wasn't a perfect solution. Marcus believed that animal blood made us less aggressive, so it might take the edge off Jane's condition. Jane and the other vampires here certainly seemed to think it sounded humiliating, and Aro had the luxury of knowing that it could not do his darling girl any lasting harm. Better, the masters now had a method of punishment that was not dependent on only one member of the guard.

I turned my eyes to the right, where I could just see Bella's face beneath her hood. She'd been given a darker shade of gray, probably by Sulpicia, probably because of her success with Caroly.

There was the possibility, though, of vampires coming to associate yellow eyes with criminality, like a branded face, but even that was closer to normalization than the current state of affairs. Who knew? It was remotely possible that the whole world would start to see feeding on animals as an option for their everyday lives. In Korea, a dish called kongbap had caught on as health cuisine, but it had started out as prison food.

Jane's mind was still a maze of pieces locking together like industrial parts: disappointment, anger, humiliation all slamming toward her from different directions. It was enough to break a man. The guard licked it all up like a cat at the cream.

As predicted. As promised. I'd given Aro a way to control the crowd.

I met his eyes through the low susurrus of the coven's reaction. _Well?_ I asked him.

_We shall see, young Edward,_ he thought back, and that was better than two hands around my throat any day of the week.

From across the room, Chelsea looked right at me. In her thoughts, I could feel the death grip that she had on Afton's hand. _Thank you_, she thought quickly. I ducked my head, just barely.

We brought the human in. I'd argued for the need for a chair, but it had been declined. No one sat in the presence of the masters, not in the feasting hall. Instead, he settled into a kneeling position and held out his arm for me. Volunteer Adal couldn't have been much past twenty. He had dark eyes and a determined set to his jaw. As I carefully injected venom into a peripheral vein, his only thoughts were that my hands felt cold.

I'd considered a thousand different factors that might put an end to me. A bite didn't target a working blood vessel this way. There would be no exposure to the venom of a second vampire. The venom wasn't mine—Aro hadn't wanted any more little Carolys coming to idolize me.

Bella stood behind me, counting out the time in her head. Neither of us could remember exactly how long it had been, so she remembered where it had hurt. Never past her elbow, she'd said. Never all the way to her heart.

Adal began to pant and groan. More than one member of the coven thought of it as barking sounds. Bella had coached him well, and he used his free hand to indicate the progression of pain down his limbs. I activated the aspirator and drew the venom back out, blood and all. I waited until his breathing steadied, the way hers had steadied, the lines of pain going smooth on her forehead and the hammerbeat of her heart evening out, long ago.

The human was sent back to his work, not that I expected him to get anything done with that much blood loss. I would check on him later.

A few of the guard had a passing interest in whether or not my experiment would work, but far more of them were still worried about Jane, piecing out the punishment in their minds.

Finally, we were dismissed. I took Bella by the arm as we left, hoping that I'd be able to breathe for the first time since we returned to Volterra.

"It was a good idea, you know," I murmured. "Telling Aro put Jane on animal blood." Not that the master had been grateful. Marcus had appreciated the elegance of it, though.

"Not that I'm looking forward to having her eat with us," Bella said, "but you said that it makes vampires less aggressive. Maybe that's what she needs."

"At least it gives Aro a way to punish her," I said. And that would give me time to complete my mission and find a real cure. Then Aro would spare me.

Bella shook her head, "No, this will make her better." She was confident, but there was something sad behind it. "I'm sure she'll get better now."

"Juliet wills it so," I said playfully.

"You bet your ass I do."

I was betting more than that, actually. She opened her mouth to say something else, but I held up a hand as someone came up behind us.

"Do you think it will work?" Demetri asked me as the crowd dispersed around us.

"I do," I told him. "If not with this human, then we will try again with different combinations of venom, different lengths of exposure. We will make this work."

His thoughts were dark with memories of the last Romanian encounters. A newborn army might help beat them back, or better still, prevent them from making a move in the first place. "I hope you're right, Brother," he answered.

I turned toward him. "You've never—"

He frowned. _Never what?_ I realized with a start that he hadn't realized that he'd said it. Bella, damn her, was holding in a laugh.

"Never mind," I said.

_Strange man,_ thought Demetri, _but reasonable enough. If animal blood does make them mad, at least it's a useful madness. Jane may get better after all._

"What are we on today?" Bella asked me, "Now that we're back on."

"German subjunctive," I told her. I had neglected our studies in the upper library in favor of keeping Aro from killing me. She'd kindly put aside her books to help.

_Brother..._ I remembered in Demetri's voice. It was just something that members of the guard called each other, the way they called Caius "master." But still...

Perhaps I was no longer an outsider here. Perhaps, one day, it would not be so easy for Aro to condemn me. Not if I would be missed.

"Edward, what do you do when you want two things... and you think you can only have one of them?" Bella asked me all of a sudden.

"False paradox," I murmured. I wanted to go home, but I also wanted to keep our world safe. I wanted to be with my family and I wanted to protect them. "Don't assume that you can't have both. It only means that you haven't found out how to do it yet." I looked her in the eye and smiled. "Time is our ally, Bella. You can figure out any problem if you have enough time. Today is proof of that."

Her hand crept out and found my own. "And we're going to be here a long time," she said.

I nodded slowly. It was true.

I looked at Bella. She was watching me a quiet amber gaze, like the last pure sunlight before the day ended. "They'll want you for this," I said, nodding toward the feasting hall, the newborns, the future. "You and Renata. You've shown that you're good at training the new ones." I let that hang in the air. She couldn't leave when her year was up. They wouldn't let her.

"It's like I told you," she said, with something like a smile. "I'm not going anywhere without you."

I couldn't help but smile back. The world was tightening like a noose around us and, for this minute at least, I _didn't care_, not if she'd finally forgiven me. I clasped her hand in both of mine and brought it up to my lips.

"I know."

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END OF PART TWO.

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drf24


	39. Part III: Ch 38 The Front

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

Note to Mediaminer readers: Unless otherwise indicated, please assume that all "updates" of earlier chapters are for the repair of typos, not changes in content.

MM is still not taking updates in .doc form, so we're stuck either without paragraph breaks or without italics.

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"This can't be the work of just _one _newborn vampire. ...so who is creating them, then?" –Edward, _Eclipse_

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"You know, Edward, your mate should try harder not to provoke Master Caius."

Stephen, halfway across the darkened hallway, gave me a confused look. No wonder. This was a terrible example for him. Outside, I could hear Demetri thinking something uncharitable. I touched the receiver at my neck.

"Rolfe, just because these things are encrypted doesn't mean you should spout our private business across the airwaves."

"I wouldn't have to if you'd just read my mind like a normal person." I was reading his mind, as it happened. The plan had been that I would only use my transmitter to send messages out to the rest of the team, and then only when necessary. This building wasn't exactly state of the art, but there was no way to be sure that the security system wouldn't react to incoming signals. "And who still calls them 'airwaves'? You're way more conspicuous than I am."

"Shut up and keep an eye out, Rolfe," said Demetri. "We don't want another Zhengzhou situation."

A sigh crackled its way over the line, "We're never going to live that down, are we, Edward? But seriously, you know I'm right. Heidi _and_ Richard complained."

"Rolfe," Caroly's voice came through the receiver, clear as if she were standing beside me, "if you don't shut up, Demetri's going to have you put on the milk diet for six months, and yellow is not your color." And Felix would take advantage of his diminished strength to beat him senseless on a daily basis, but that went without saying. It was practically part of the punishment.

"You know I've got a point, Edward," Rolfe said again as his eyes swept the dark street. Even secondhand, it seemed eerie. I remembered Zhengzhou full of street lamps and headlights. Xi'an was like a shadow that hid some careful, skittering beast, alive with the thoughts of waking and dreaming humans, but dark.

"Demetri's right, Rolfe. We should talk about this later." I let go of my receiver and nodded to Stephen. We'd been planning this job for three months and damned if I was going to let him worry me. If Rolfe spoke up during a mission, it was probably to dispel tension, to let Demetri and Caroly snipe at him a little rather than worry about running into the police or the army.

Over the course of China's long history, thirteen separate dynasties had held capitals in Shaanxi Province. Of these, Xi'an was probably the most important. Its prime location as the eastern destination of the Great Silk Road had likely had something to do with that.

Currently, however, its location was extremely close to the geographic line of China's heavily enflamed east-west divide, and its many cultural treasures were in need of, as Master Caius had euphemistically put it, "evacuation." If he could have, he'd have had us lift up the entire Drum Tower and reassemble it in Volterra. The smaller of the two Wild Goose Towers had already collapsed after an air strike. I'd been with him and Aro in the library when he'd learned that these pieces were on display in a downtown museum, and, tonight, we were taking them out.

Museums weren't doing much in the way of business these days with the city under martial law. In fact, most of Xi'an's portable artwork had already been packed away to less target-rich zones or to friendly countries—though which countries seemed friendlier to which side changed by the week. It was rather remarkable that even these pieces were on display.

The exhibits were in storage, but the security system was not. It was a touch obsolete by today's standard, but more than a match for most casual thieves: Full-room laser detection and pressure switches were the least of it. The whole array was a touch obsolete by today's standards, but Caius's items had been rendered completely inaccessible to anyone who operated within the limits of human dexterity.

Stephen, one of Caroly's newborns, had no such limits. Gift or no gift, the man was a wonder with his hands and feet and balance. He'd done so well in combat that Demetri had handpicked him for this mission. I had a bet running with Rolfe as to whether Caius would offer him a permanent place in the guard once his year was up. Most of our newborns we cut loose.

The holodecoy had taken Richard and Marjane fifteen days to construct. The apparatus gave off a noiseless, odorless stream of mist that worked as a screen against which it projected a perfect three-dimensional image of the stolen artifact. If we were lucky, no one would notice that the items were gone until morning. If we were very lucky, a day's worth of patrons would file by, believing that they'd seen two Tang Dynasty vases and a real Han-era crossbow until the machine ran out of aerosol and quietly broke down to its component parts sometime tomorrow night.

I nodded to Stephen and pulled the detector from the folds of my cloak. We'd practiced this twenty times a day since August. I monitored the room for lulls in the electron cloud that swept the room ahead of the lasers and then gave Stephen the signal. He moved like a flickering shadow, one toe barely touching a pedestal as he launched himself to his first grip from the ceiling. Another signal and he was at the first pressure switch, setting down the holodecoy in the vase's place.

My role in all of this was that of a chaperone and lookout. Stephen was relatively capable, but turning them calm didn't make them experienced. I was here as Stephen's guide and as liaison with our support crew, currently engaged in a four-way lookout. Demetri, cloaked and still as a stone, was watching from the main entrance. Caroly, Rolfe and Andrew were outside. With any luck, it would be a quiet night, but we had five possible routes out of the city and eight perfectly ordered contingency plans for dealing with nomads, human citizens, museum security, civilian law enforcement, the Western Nationalist Army, and either air or ground strikes from the People's military.

No human could have made it from the display to the blind spot and back in the time they had. _I_ couldn't have done it on an average day, and I was faster than most.

I snapped the two vases, one small and one large, into a carrying case that Caroly would disguise as luggage once we were outside. I nodded to Stephen and we hugged the blind spots and worked our way toward the section of the museum that housed older artifacts.

I heard a sound from outside.

"Caroly, can you keep Andrew under control?" I murmured into the radio at my throat.

There was no response, but I could see the alleyways in Caroly's thoughts as she went to remind our other newborn of his duty. No one was placing any bets on Andrew, and he knew it. That was probably why he was so disgruntled about being put on something as dull as guard duty. He'd never prove himself to the masters if he kept sulking.

"What is it?" asked Stephen.

"Something's wrong outside," I said.

Wordlessly, he handed me the crossbow. Too bad the darn thing wasn't strung, let alone loaded.

Stephen breathed in nervously, "What is—?"

I held up a hand, listening carefully until I found the thoughts I needed. I met Stephen's eyes and only mouthed the words: "We are not alone."

"Humans?" he mouthed back.

"No."

"Demetri," I said out loud into my radio.

_Yes?_ he thought back.

"Four," I told him. I tossed Stephen the vase case and hoisted the bare crossbow over my shoulder.

_What's going on?_ asked Stephen.

"Something unplanned."

_Crap_, he thought. I didn't disagree.

I picked up the pace, taking slightly less care with the security system. Andrew was one hell of a fighter, but if there were three grunts on the ground, he and Caroly could be in serious danger. With Stephen at my heels, I hurried toward our exit, a sixth-floor window in a security black spot. I walked around the corner straight into a pair of bright red, practically glowing eyes. For a full ten seconds, I actually thought it must have been Andrew.

Then the man smiled, as if I were a long-expected guest.

I supposed even mind readers had the right to be surprised now and again.

I heard footsteps falling away behind me, "Stephen!" I shouted, but I already knew what had happened. I couldn't beat a newborn in a fight, not alone. "Stephen, don't be a coward!" Not that it would help; he _was_. He'd never willingly fought anyone whose strength even approached his own. He was going to make a pathetic vampire once his year was up.

The newborn had shoulder-length black hair and the layered clothes of a northern refugee. He might have been Asian but it was hard to tell with the grin. I'd forgotten how inhuman newborns could look, and this one was _very_ eager to tear me apart.

He growled heavily, filling the air with his aggression. I stood straight beneath my cloak. I was Edward of the Volturi, and I would not be intimidated.

He dropped into a crouch a split second before the leap. I caught his intention and darted to the side, kicking him heavily in the back as he went. In the back of my mind, I could see Andrew and Caroly facing off against a pair of them, four eyes like flames. I could see Stephen running headlong through the museum, thinking that he would bring the vases back to Caius to save himself from punishment. Fool.

"Edward," came Demetri's voice on my radio, "where is their master?"

"Rooftop," I said.

"Which building?" asked Demetri, airflow kicking up the background as he circled toward Andrew and Caroly. Rolfe had figured out what was wrong and was climbing the wall behind me.

The newborn lunged for my neck, pinning my right hand to my collarbone. I choked involuntarily, getting an unpleasant reek of my opponent's clothes. It became clear to me that the refugee had lived in these clothes for at least a month before finally dying in them. From my pinned position, I watched my enemy's thoughts. He thought I was down. He thought I was out. I did not enjoy the prospect of being torn apart, but I'd been Felix's personal Velcro set for my first eight months with the guard, and I knew how much my limbs could take before they separated.

Outside, through Caroly's thoughts, I could see two pairs of ember-bright eyes materialize and move down the alley. Andrew only registered as one of the Volturi's newborn grunts, but I felt a chill run through me as they both identified Caroly by sight. I felt my jaw drop as I realized they'd been trained to distract the minders first, which would disorient rival newborns—that they'd been trained at all.

A crack from one of my ribs reminded me that I had more immediate problems. The newborn's arms held me like steel bars.

But the wall was only wood and cinder blocks.

The newborn was strong, but whoever had taught him combat was no Bella. I braced my legs behind us and sent us both partway through the barrier, kicking up a cloud of dust straight into my opponent's eyes. I freed my legs twisted out of his loosened grip. I grasped his arm and twisted it behind him, trapping him in the still-crackling hole between the two rooms, and yanked hard.

The newborn shrieked as his forearm came loose, mind alive with horror as he stared at the stump, just long enough for me to get hold of his head with both arms and, with a shoulder-wrenching heave, pull it loose.

A vampire's arms and legs could still move without a head. In fact, his arm was creeping off in the direction of the Song wing at the moment, and I could not have that.

I touched the radio at my neck, "Across the street to the east, Demetri. Hurry!"

_I see him!_ he thought back.

By now, museum security knew there were intruders. We had minutes to get out of here without leaving any evidence behind, preferably with the vases and crossbow. Caroly, Rolfe and Andrew were having trouble overcoming the two other newborns in the alley, and Stephen was almost to the main entrance below. On impulse, I dragged my enemy's stray arm through the gap back toward my blind spot. Taking quick stock of the layout through Caroly's eyes, I hurled it downward like a spear. There was a startled shout and one of the newborns lost its balance long enough for Andrew to get in a throat shot. I searched for Rolfe's mind and blinked hard. Was he _inside_ the building?

"Coming down," I said again.

"Good, we need the help!" answered Andrew.

"No, I mean their friend is," I answered.

_Oh_, thought Andew. _That's good too_._ Aim for the groin, would you? This one's being a real pain in my ass._

I hurled the body ahead of me and then the pulled myself through the window. Even aside from the fight, this was going to be extremely problematic. We had ways of disposing of dead vampires in cities, but not with a major Chinese army closing in on us. There was no way that we could burn four dismembered vampires in the time we had. We were going to have to take them with us. That would slow us down, increase our chances of being caught with very obviously inhuman remains.

Instead of dropping down to the alley, I inched across the ledge toward the east face. I could see a pair of shadows fighting on the far roof. With a running start, I could have jumped it.

I spared myself fifteen seconds to watch the slashing silhouettes. Neither of the men on the roof were newborns. Both of them fought with experience. In this light, though, I could not tell one from the other.

The thoughts I could hear, though. Demetri tended to swear in Russian.

The other man thought in Romanian.

It was three on two in the alley below us. The best thing to do would be dispatch the two grunts quickly and then scale the building. I gathered my cloak around me and jumped.

The laws of physics were what they were. I couldn't make myself fall faster, and the downside of being airborne was that there was no way to change trajectory. The newborn moved to his right, and I landed right in front of him.

Fortunately, he was halfway through a lunge toward Andrew and tripped over me. He shook his head in distraction. The next fifteen seconds were a blur. Caroly and I had been fighting together for almost twenty years, and she and Bella had trained Andrew together. We dispatched our enemy with the perfect synchrony of a flower opening to the night. I kicked him into Andrew's waiting grip and Caroly had his throat before he could draw breath. He was in pieces before he hit the ground.

The remaining newborn was younger than mine had been, or at least turned younger. He was a little on the scrawny side, too, with short hair sticking straight out. In a human boy it might have been endearing or gawky. On a newborn, it was the look of a jaguar, tight with feline rage.

I had to admire him, I thought as I twisted his calf off at the knee. He wasn't afraid. Andrew was half again his size and he'd gone straight for him. The young man's mind wrenched and twisted into the now-familiar mental shrieks of a vampire who suddenly found himself without a stomach or a voice or fingers.

His name had been Gao, his family name. He wasn't a volunteer. They'd just taken him.

Rolfe barreled around a corner just in time for Caroly to round on him. "Where were you?" she demanded of him.

Rolfe held up a round, gray object. I recognized it as a late-model electromagnet. "Erasing the security drives," he said intently. _Let's face it, we aren't getting out of here clean. No sense making it home just to get executed._

"Rolfe," I said quickly, "Demetri—he's fighting their minder on the—"

Rolfe was already looking toward the east but nodding heavily, vaulting between the close-set buildings until he reached roof level. The fight was nearly over, and Demetri probably didn't need the help, but this was no time to take chances, when so much else had just gone so very wrong.

I tried to tune out the mental voices of the three decapitated vampires and looked toward the rest of my team. Andrew was rubbing his wide nose with one hand, a habit left over from his human days. Caroly was looking at me with wide, concerned red eyes.

_Where's Stephen?_ she asked.

"Gone," I answered. "Fled." Even his thoughts were missing. I couldn't hear him anywhere.

Caroly's eyes widened. "He left you?" Andrew looked up sharply.

I nodded.

_Master Caius will have Stephen executed for this_, Caroly told me quietly. And then, _I am the one who'll be put to animal blood_. I reached out and squeezed her shoulder. She'd done so well so many times. My Caroly was the picture of a perfect Volturi, powerful and completely self-acutalized, bending her gift for group dynamics toward her duty. Caius would allow her to earn back her position swiftly—probably by hunting down our runaway and dragging him back to Volterra for justice. A deeply uncivilized part of myself hoped I'd get to join in. I probably would. Caius had an appreciation for revenge.

I looked up, eyes searching the skyline, "Better gather up these here," I said, eying the still-twitching limbs. I did a quick count, mentally reassembling the bodies. We couldn't leave so much as a finger for anyone to find. I snapped off my cloak for a makeshift sack and started piling things together.

"What about Demetri?" asked Andrew.

I listened intently. "The fight is over," I said. "Demetri and Rolfe will meet us at the front of the building, and we'll make for exit route four."

Andrew did some mental juggling as he tried to remember whether we were going through the High-Tech Industries Development Zone or just making for the southern boundary, but at least his hands were busy. I tossed him all three heads one by one. Three cloaks, three bodies, and the more mixed up they were, the better. We could probably start a brush fire out on the plain or in the hills and blame it all on some natural disaster. Caius might even feel better if he knew that he wasn't the only one suffering.

"Who were they?" Andrew asked in a loud hiss as we hurried toward our rendezvous point.

"They were with the Romanians," I answered quietly.

"They were like me," Andrew said, "me and Stephen."

I nodded tightly. And Li and Carlos and Alicia and Adal and a dozen other calm newborns who'd served the Volturi over the past nineteen years.

Caroly exhaled slowly. _It was only a matter of time before someone else figured it out_, she thought.

I hefted the ungainly, slowly undulating bundle, trying to settle it better on my shoulders, and I nearly tripped over the rectangular case that lay carelessly in my path. Caroly and I exchanged a glance, and Andrew ducked forward to pick it up one-armed.

I carefully turned the corner to the front of the building, where Stephen's limbs lay in a disordered pile. Arms. Legs. Three pieces that made up the torso. Part of his neck.

I looked around the alleyways, but I still couldn't hear his voice. Not anywhere. I swallowed something that reminded me of bile. The last one, the master. He'd taken it with him.

"I don't think we need to worry about Caius executing Stephen," I said.

It seemed that the Romanians did take prisoners.

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Three very tense hours later, we were outside the curfew lines and halfway up into the hills south of the city. Dawn was nearly breaking, and Rolfe was dousing the bodies with accelerant. We would linger long enough to see that no pieces remained unburned. Then we would be far from shelter, near an active front in a major military conflict, with two of us sharing outerwear.

"What about him?" Andrew asked, pointing to the weakly squirming mass inside Rolfe's cloak.

_Can anyone survive that?_ Demetri thought to himself. _Even if we restore him, would he live?_ His face was like a cragged rock, but his mind was like the sea that battered it. If I could sense emotions, I was sure I'd feel his skin crawl.

I did not know the answer to his question. It would fascinate Aro, though. In the meantime, what was left of Stephen presented a huge risk of discovery. I wasn't sure it wasn't illegal on its face.

"We will take him back to Volterra for safekeeping," Demetri said out loud, "unless it proves impractical. In the meantime," he asked simply "how did you miss this?" There was no malice in the question. With Demetri, it was always about tactics.

"They must have shown up after we did," I said. Demetri would not care for excuses, but he'd asked and this was the answer. "If they watched from far enough away, they could have avoided me. I would have known if there had been any vampires in the museum before Stephen and I went in."

_That means they knew we'd be here and that Edward had been sent,_ he eyed me carefully, willing me not to respond out loud. I shook my head.

"They might have only suspected it would be us, Brother," I told him. "They've sent us out together before." I swallowed. "It could be anything else," I said. One of the newborns we'd discarded. A nomad who'd paid particular attention to Caius's MO.

Demetri's ruby-clear eyes looked out toward the city. Behind us, the largest nation in modern history was pulsing like an infected wound, sending out red streaks to the countries that shared China's interests—both Chinas. The human world was tearing itself apart.

And Demetri thought there was a spy in Volterra.

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drf24


	40. Ch 39 Redemption

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

This one's a bit rambly and heavy on the exposition, but I hope you enjoy the snark. More action to come.

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"Riley told us that we had to destroy the strange yellow-eyes here. He said it would be easy." –Bree, _Eclipse_

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_Conflict between the Chinese army and western rebels accelerated today in Guangdong. Anti-aircraft measures successfully prevented the destruction of what the Beijing government claims was a pharmaceutical factory. Requests for a U.N. peacekeeping force have been delayed due to human rights concerns. Beijing assures the international community that both sides have sworn off what Xing refers to as "extreme measures," but Western forces announce that they have secured at least two nuclear warheads._

_Regarding rumors of kidnapped women, children and medical personnel—_

I closed my eyes and the relay ceased. Anything longer than a blink and the darn things shut themselves off. No more heavy tablets and Internet phones the size of playing cards. Today you could carry your hardware in your wrist or finger and project your news or a full-sized ergonomic keyboard onto any smooth surface. Five years ago, Marcus had had the tables in the main library equipped with adjustable white screens that mimicked the texture of old paper books. They were even easier on the eyes the ones in the Internet café at the edge of the Piazza where Edward and I used to go before they'd turned it into a maglev repair shop.

There had been a lot of smaller conflicts coming up to it, but five of the western provinces and the Xinjiang Autonomous Region had declared their independence from China proper in the spring. The Tibetians had taken advantage of the situation and done the same on their own, but Inner Mongolia was still on board. It made sense. Beijing had spent the past twenty years promoting manufacturing in the Hohhot Export Processing Zone, and it had been the site of some of the first collective bargaining experiments about ten years back. People in Gansu, Yunnan and Qinghai hadn't been so lucky. It also didn't hurt that peneconcordant uranium deposits had been found in the sandstone underneath the Mongolian steppe. Nuclear power lit half of China—the eastern half.

During the early years of the Cold War, China had deliberately spread development throughout the country. Sensitive industries, such as arms development, had been placed far inland for security reasons. You could say it was fair, but you could also say that it didn't work. In 1978, General Secretary Deng Xiaopeng had opened the country to foreign investment, issued licenses to entrepreneurs, and focused development on coastal regions. The idea was that these areas would grow strong economies and pull the rest of the country along with them. It had worked. A little. Standards of living had gone up, but the gap between rich and poor and between cities and rural areas had skyrocketed.

We'd all been worried that China would split along the old north-south cultural line. Edward had told me that Aro had laughed when he'd figured it out. Something about the little humans always finding a way to surprise him. Bastard.

Most of the fighting so far had taken place in Yunnan. Something about both sides wanting the platinum deposits for the high-end fuel cells that you put in pulse rifles. Neither side was hurting for weapons. University-trained doctors and nurses? They were in short supply. The Westerners had come up with the neat trick of targeting medics. Of course, they said that the Beijing army had started doing it first. One way or another, they were both up to it now.

If things got much worse, and the U.N. would send soldiers. That meant American soldiers, young kids just out of high school, trying to earn their GI bill and make something of themselves. That's what had happened in Taiwan a few years ago.

I always pictured Jacob.

But that had been my problem for months—years, if I felt like being honest. My main concern today was making sure that nothing had happened in Xi'an, and nothing had. Who knew what was happening to Edward out there, but at least he wasn't getting firebombed. We'd lost Randall and Adalfieri in the uprising outside Lijiang City not two years back.

There were no bells or quitting flags in the compound. Everyone knew what time it was, so everyone knew that shift was over. I joined the muted rustling of vampires rising to their feet and change places. Aro wasn't here in person today. He usually didn't bother unless Edward was with him.

I stepped aside as the crew for the next library shift walked past me. Oh God, was Richard actually wearing sunglasses? What an idiot. First, wearing sunglasses indoors makes you look like an asshole, even if you're human. Second, the sneering douchebag had spent so much time beating up vampires who'd been ordered to drink animal blood that you'd think he'd have noticed that it takes more than one feeding to turn your eyes yellow. Third, he was only drawing more attention to himself, like that time when Marcy Ginsberg from sixth grade had pulled her socks all the way up because she thought she'd started growing leg hair. She'd looked a lot like an idiot herself.

Or had she been named Melinda? I couldn't really remember. Edward had told me to go over my human memories, and I mostly had, but I'd focused on what I thought was important: Charlie, Renée, Jacob, Arizona in general and my human days with our old family, the Cullens. And Alice, of course. The rest of it had gone gray over the years.

Edward and Caroly were due back this morning. In about fifteen minutes, actually. If it had been Afton leading the team I might have bothered getting someone to cover my shifts so I could sneak out, but Demetri was like a stopwatch. They were supposed to get back before dawn today, so they'd get back before dawn today. Unless something had gone wrong.

I walked down the hall, trying not to look too agitated. The discipline had to be maintained, after all, even in our own keep.

They didn't send me out on missions much. I didn't mind. Missions were horrible. Spending years at a clip without fresh air was a small price to pay. Besides, they didn't need me. I was a decent fighter but nothing special, at least not for the guard. The masters sometimes sent me along as a grunt and slightly more often as a minder, but if there were newborns to train, they considered that a better use of my time.

Most of the missions I'd been on had been pretty routine. Rough up this group of nomads here. Kill these criminals there. Patrol this area for two weeks. Calm newborns didn't need the constant minding that Marcell and Caroly had, but they did need teachers, especially if we wanted them to mind the discipline. And guess who got drafted as the Volturi drill sergeant? Whatever. I only wished it cut into my time in the tower more.

I breathed in and out. They'd come through reception first. The whole team would have to report to Aro, Marcus and Caius, but at least I'd get to lay eyes on them and know how many pieces they were in. Four years ago, a German nomad had ripped Caroly's arm off at the elbow, and Felix had done a shit job of putting her back together. Renata and I had had to realign it. I'd tried to do it alone, but my hands had kept shaking.

That was when I'd been sure that Caroly was mine. I'd put vampires back together dozens of times, steady as a rock. Caroly made my hands shake.

I snorted out a laugh. Two kids by age nineteen? Renee would have been furious. At least I hadn't let myself get attached to the others like I had to Caroly and my boy. I'd considered asking Adal to call me "Aunt," but that had smacked of the traitorous hags from _Handmaid's Tale_. He'd called me Teacher. All of the others since had called me Teacher. It had worked. It was close but not too close. I could be like the rancor tamer from _Return of the Jedi_, caring just enough about the monsters I trained for my employer to get upset when the hero tore them apart. I'd liked that analogy a little more, mostly because it meant that Caius was Jabba the Hutt.

I hadn't shared that particular mental image with Edward. I'd wanted to, but Aro might've gotten mad.

Both my current students were out in the field today. Caroly was minding them. She'd grown into such a capable vampire. Sometimes, in my more delirious moments, I was actually proud that I'd helped her become a powerful member of the guard. When I looked at her, I tried to remember that the Volturi might actually save more humans than they ate. She certainly did.

The nature of Caroly's gift had become clear slowly. We'd always known that she a sense of people, and in a compound full of creatures not naturally inclined to live in close quarters, that was worth more than gold. She could look across a crowded room and tell who was the leader, who was the follower, who was the weak link. She was usually sent on missions that involved larger rogue covens. She was also seven out of ten for guessing who was sleeping with whom. Now _that_ had shaken up the Volterra rumor mill a few times. Renata had given up gossiping for a whole month.

Edward had seen Caroly in action a few times. He said that her gift reminded him of Chelsea's. She saw people's personalities almost as if they were colors, the way that different levels of darkness in the ocean meant water at different depths. "Loyal blue," I'd joked. Caroly couldn't cut or strengthen people's ties, though, not with anything more supernatural than an axe. Take down the leader, though, and project the right image, and you could make all the others cower like dogs.

Edward said that Aro would give Caroly a team of her own to lead any day now. And our girl would be the terror of the Western world.

I moved into the reception hall and paused near one of the pillars, exactly as if I'd been ordered to be there. Technically I was on my own time until noon, when I was due to serve the wives, but until then I had the run of all the public parts of the compound.

The new hire was sitting behind the desk, elegant as an orchid. The fashions of these tense times lent themselves to sharp, saturated colors. I thought they were hideous, but this girl was wearing them well, just a little of the garish red at the edges of her neutral tan suit. It brought out the highlights in her hair and the blood in her cheeks ...and other places. From the corner of my eye, I noticed her rubbing the injection site on her left forearm. You could just barely see the dot. It would heal into a tiny white scar, no nasty bite mark like James had left me with.

The stupid clock on the wall wouldn't move. Sometimes I felt like a princess in a story, stuck in a tower while her knight took all the risk. At least I was no damsel in distress any more. If some dragon showed up, I could rip its head off.

I ought to have been used to frustration, I thought. After all, I lived with Edward. The past twenty years had had more false starts than my old Chevy on a cold morning.

_I can't get out_.

That one had really stuck with me. It had to have been right after Adal had been turned—must have been, because I never had time to read those first few weeks after a newborn woke up—and I'd been in the upper library. In those days, I'd been determined to be the most well-read high school dropout ever.

It was Sterne. It was that fucking starling. I'd read that poem—or at least I thought of it as a poem—my sophomore year. It was mentioned in _Mansfield Park_ and I'd wanted to see the rest. It turned out to be about a guy who's writing an essay about how just because you're locked up in prison doesn't mean you have to _be_ in prison. But then he sees a little bird stuck in a cage, beating against the bars in a full-blown panic attack. The guy tries to open up the cage and all the time the little bird is begging, "I can't get out! I can't get out!" But the man can't get the door to open. He sees that the only way to turn the bird loose would be to break the cage into pieces.

And he doesn't do it. He goes on and on about how sorry he feels for the little sack of feather mites, but he doesn't _do_ it. Back in high school, I'd thought he was a just a big pre-Victorian jerk. In Volterra, I understood.

My cage was worth more than I was.

Figuring that out was like remembering tears. It was like that bird's voice pushing against my eyes from the inside, and Edward had been right there, with the hint of sunlight just touching the edge of him and I'd suddenly hated the silence in the room. I knew him so well. I knew that the minute I opened my mouth, he'd remember the row of Austen books on my shelf back in Forks, the page with the scuff marks where I'd read that line over and over. He'd know what I was feeling and how to get it out of me.

"Edward," I'd said, and he'd looked up at me, perfect eyes, perfect face, ready to hear me say _I can't get out._

My throat had sealed itself shut as something sucked all the warmth out of the room.

_I can't get out_. It had beaten against my heart like a thousand tiny wings. _I can't get out._  
I had to keep the words in. I couldn't tell him, not about any of it.

"Bella, what is it?" he'd walked over to me, put his hand on my arm.

The words were fluttering in my mouth and I had to bite my tongue to keep them in, or else I'd put another clue in his head. _Breaking the cage apart._ Volterra was my cage. Oh I'd had backups in place for if Plan J hadn't worked, but they'd all been based on the same general principle: Destroy the Volturi and then walk away from the wreckage.

I hadn't told Edward any of this, but that didn't mean he'd never figure it out. Even if he didn't, if he knew too much, Aro would figure it out, and then I was dead. Maybe both of us.

Early during our captivity, we'd promised each other that there would be no secrets between us. I'd been lying, of course. After all, I was orchestrating our escape, and I'd had to keep Aro from reading it in Edward's mind. At first, I'd told myself, "It's only a few months." And I'd been so pleased with myself, imagining laying out all the pieces for him and Alice once we were home and safe, like the detective at the end of the mystery. I'd been so stupid.

My reflection had reeled back at me from Edward's eyes, two wild, hollow creatures.

This wasn't a few months, I'd realized. My stupid plan had gotten Marcell and all those humans killed and I was going to have to keep it a secret _forever_.

I should've just packed it away like I packed everything else away, told him it was nothing and switched back to reading Donne. But Edward was his own man. I might study him like a puzzle, learn which buttons to push, but I'd never be able to control him. And he wanted to know what was wrong.

"Bella?" he'd asked

"I..."

His fingers had closed gently on my wrist. I had to tell him something. I licked my lips. "I miss home is all," I said. That was innocuous enough. Nothing for Aro to read into there.

Edward had put one perfect finger under my chin to keep me from turning away. "_You're lying_," he told me calmly. "I think I know what this is about." Or at least he'd thought he did.

We'd had a fight about it. He was getting comfortable here. I'd thought it had started with Demetri calling him "Brother" on the day Adal was prepped, but it had really been before that. He'd been talking about making the best of things from day one, but once he'd dodged that bullet the day we'd gotten back from Croatia, he'd started to ...maybe not _enjoy_ being Volturi, but he'd cracked jokes with Rolfe. He'd talked strategy with Demetri. I'd even caught him discussing Jane with Chelsea a few times.

"Bella, we _are_ home," he'd told me.

The cloak didn't look strange on him any more. He wasn't wearing somebody else's clothes. They were his. He _fit in_.

I'd started to pull away, but he'd kept his grip on my wrist. "Do you know why?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. I'd heard it a million times. Because I couldn't get out.

He cupped my face in both hands. "Because it's where you are, Bella," he told me quietly. "You're my home."

He'd kissed me then, breathed my name and pulled me into his arms, At first he'd just held me, but I'd wanted more and before long, I'd heard the book fall off the table and hit the floor. I'd hoped it had broken its spine.

He'd felt so _warm_. None of our chaste kisses had been enough for me to notice how warm he was. Even his hands. A thousand poems, a million singing birds couldn't say how much I'd liked his hands. He'd tossed the edge of his cloak around my shoulders so that it covered us both. I'd stretched out the shield in my mind until I could see him like a light inside my head and he'd felt so good, like something strong and alive and fluttering between my fingers, and I'd kissed him back harder than ever. It was better than that day in the woods, better than the day he'd turned me. I'd held onto him just long enough to wonder if he would feel any different when we went all the way, but as soon as he started kissing my neck, I'd gotten distracted and everything snapped back.

And then my mind started racing. Last time, he'd stopped as soon as something had distracted him. I'd wondered... Would it break the spell if I said anything? Was he like this with me only because he was lost in the moment or did he think about it as much as I did?

"You can," I whispered in his ear, holding his hand against my hip with one of mine. "You can, Edward." Back in Croatia, I'd had a game plan. Get him used to the idea little by little, let him go a little further each time until he realized there was nothing to be afraid of, but things were never that simple, not with us.

Edward pulled back to arm's length and I'd wanted to kick myself, the book, the wall, the whole damned world. _Couldn't just shut up and ride it in, could you, Swan?_

"Edward," was the only word I could say out loud. _I want you to,_ wouldn't come out. For the first time in months, I'd wished that he could just read my mind. _I want it for me_. _For you. For both of us._

"Bella, we're not—" he took half a step away and I followed him.

"Yes we are," I'd said quickly. I slid my fingers across the back of his neck and felt a tiny thrill when his eyes closed. "We're old enough, we're ready enough, we're anything you could want." And the things we weren't were the things we couldn't do anything about.

Edward looked away for a second, and then looked back at me. I licked my lips, but he hadn't seemed shocked or angry or even hesitant. He'd looked like a center sizing up a half-court shot.

That look, that speculative, might-actually-go-for-it look lasted a full eleven seconds. Then he'd looked toward the door, as if he'd heard something.

"Aro," I said dully._ Most_ people got to take the damned phone off the hook once in the while. Even Superman didn't fly off _every_ time Lois Lane wanted a word. But then most people weren't slaves to a megalomaniacal supernatural dictator.

"I'd better go," he said in a voice just above a whisper.

Getting anything done in Volterra was a matter of stops and starts. Everything had to be slipped in between the master's wishes. They were like waves. I'd learned their rhythm. I'd have drowned if I hadn't.

I tried not to tap my foot on the floor. The vampires here respected the bond, but if Marcus or Aro wanted me, I would have to go. Which was why Demetri taking his sweet effing time to bring the team back was such a problem. Stupid wall clock said that it had only been three minutes.

_Come on, Demetri_, I thought. It was supposed to be easy for vampires to sit still, but I never could on homecoming days.

I closed my eyes and listened. Nothing but the pre-dawn traffic outside. Dammit.

_What's the holdup, Demetri?_

I should have gone to the Riserva. The damn thing was nice and big now, having unofficially merged with the old Riserva Montenero. Some of the farmland was still worked, but a lot of the private property had been allowed to go wild because of the rural population drain. Most of it had waist-high grasses spiked with little saplings. At least in the Riserva there would be little wild animals to kill.

_Move your bony Russian ass, Demetri_. Wait, was Demetri Russian or Ukranian? Oh, who cared? He was from the Republic of Slowpokistan.

There was no reason for this delay. No one was injured and nothing had gone wrong, so the only reason for the delay was Demetri being a fat dawdling jerk. No one was injured and nothing had gone wrong. I forced my foot to stop tapping against the floor because no one was injured and nothing had gone wrong. I had to keep the discipline, even in our own keep. I was a woman of the Volturi.

By now, I knew half the vampires in this compound by their tread. I could pick out Caroly on tiles, floorboards and cement and Edward everywhere. These steps were Jane's.

Jane smiled mildly as she saw me. Her second smile, I called it. The oatmeal smile, the victim smile, that would always be first. But I'd earned her trust. She liked me now, as much as she liked anyone. The universe had a sense of irony.

I didn't move from my place in front of the pillar. She stopped in front of me. "Are you waiting for Edward?" she asked.

"Yes, Jane, I am," I said. I tried to focus just on the eyes, twin pools of squishy red. I tried to imagine that iris as just a sphincter keeping light out of her eyes and nothing more. My habit of being here to see Edward come home was a bit of a local joke, complete with speculation about my appetites and his equipment. None of the other mated women bothered to do it every time. The nicer of the bloodsucking harpies who made up the Volterra rumor mill just assumed I was mother henning my students. Two of them had gone out under Caroly's supervision this time, Andrew and Stephen.

"Richard has been punished," she said.

"I was there," I said, trying not to sound snippy. Jane might not be insane any more, and her taserbrain gift never had worked on me, but there was no sense provoking her. "What did he do again?" I asked. I already knew, of course, but small favors. I still had to cultivate my friendships.

"He had a fight with Felix in the Piazza," Jane reminded me.

"That's right. You took care of Felix yourself, didn't you?"

Jane nodded, smiling her oatmeal smile.

Felix had taken up with a busty blonde named Laurel. They'd actually seemed pretty well-matched, meaning that he was big and brutish and she was big and sly. But then he'd come home from patrol to find her backed up against a pillar in the upper library with Richard.

About a third of the guard was mated, and less serious relationships weren't unheard of. Cheating, on the other hand... In a house this small, everyone knew everything about everyone. There _was_ no chance of not getting caught.

Felix had ripped Richard's arms off, but that was pretty much par for the course. That evening, however, Richard and Felix had started shouting at each other in the middle of the Piazza de Priori. Two dozen humans had seen them.

It wasn't a serious crime, more like a breach of protocol. We could changes our haircuts and our wardrobes, but we weren't like nomads who could move on before the locals started to remember their faces, and Felix and Richard had just made themselves memorable.

They'd both been banned from the plum early evening R&R time slot, probably for the next twenty years, but an example had to be made. Because Felix had not been the instigator (and because of the masters' "old fashioned" ideas about men's rights over those who enjoyed their women), Felix had been allowed to choose the form of his punishment.

I had to hand it to him, he'd stood there and let Jane zap him like it was a badge of honor. Technically it was. The masters punished people with a diet of animal blood when they wanted to shame rather than harm. Putting Richard on the milk diet was a declaration that his strength was not necessary to the coven.

"How do you think he'll get back into the feasts?" I asked. There was always speculation about this. The pig-sucking vampire was always bombarded by cheerful, helpful suggestions. That was part of the punishment.

"If it were me?" Jane asked.

"If it were you, it wouldn't have happened at all," I said. There was a place in the world for flattery. At least I could choose the time and place of my ass-kissing.

Jane gave a tiny, snorting laugh. "One or two successful missions should do it, even if they're ordinary," she said. "But they won't send him out on real missions for a while. He could spend some more time on the library crew, discover something useful by himself. That should be enough."

I faked an irritated tsk. "I hope so. His dining manners are _dreadful_. He sprays pigs' blood all _over_ the place."

Jane chuckled at that. She'd been absolutely mortified during her time as Edward's and my dinner companion, and those first poor pigs had been shredded. The suggestion that anyone else had been worse soothed her.

"If the holodecoy that he helped create for this mission works well enough, he might have earned his way back already," she said. "Small crimes require small boons. It wouldn't have to be anything like what _I_ accomplished," she said.

I smiled and nodded. Jane's time of punishment wasn't exactly a taboo topic, but it was generally bad for your health to bring it up unless Jane mentioned it first. "That was a stroke of good luck," I said. "And skill," I added quickly.

"So kind of you to say it," Jane said. I watched her walk away and returned to my waiting.

The masters had kept Jane on animal blood for almost three years. Her eyes had turned yellow after a few months. She'd been furious. She'd been humiliated. But she hadn't hurt anyone else. Edward thought that it was only because she didn't want people to notice how much weaker she was without human blood backing her tiny body.

I'd timed it carefully, kept protecting her until just after her first meal. No one had noticed, not even Chelsea. I'd been so damned lucky.

During her punishment, Jane had been sent out on missions—always with more than the usual compliment of fighers as her backup muscle. Once, Edward had come to me ticking off his rumpled shopping list of hopes like a kid picking out snacks for a house party. Animal blood was making her sane, not mad, and the whole coven had seen it. She'd grown weaker, not stronger, and therefore less of a threat, and the whole coven had seen it. She seemed less aggressive, and could that be an effect as well?

"You miss Carlisle," I'd said.

That had sobered him up. "Not so loud," he'd answered.

I should have just answered him in kind. I should have told him that I liked that he was sharing this with me, even if I could never be the nimble-minded colleague that he'd had in Dr. Cullen.

_One day,_ I'd told myself.

Jane had wanted off the animal blood right away, but she'd been lucid enough to see _that_ wasn't happening. Aro adored her, but Caius had been too damned pissed off. I remembered feeling pretty smug about that. It was only once her punishment had gone on so long that the rest of the coven had started to worry for themselves—no one wanted to be put to the pigs with no way out—that Jane had stopped being Edward's and my unwanted dinner guest.

I'd been on shift when the library team had found him. His name had been Jozef, for all that he'd been going by José for the past three-hundred-odd. He'd been found lurking in Argentina, ever since the Rumanian uprising.

Jane had been sent to eliminate him. Now that her brain was back in her usual place, she could lead teams again. The masters had allowed her a tracker, Corin, and two of our yearling newborns as grunts.

I'd gone along as their mentor. It hadn't been my first mission without Edward, but it was the first one to take me an ocean away. I could still feel the weight in the air, heavy with water and strange insects. We'd caught the man mid-hunt outside Rio de Janiero. I'd been terrified. Of leaving Edward with Chelsea for so long, of making a mistake and draining a human, of making a mistake and getting one of my students killed. Most of all, I hadn't wanted to be punished. Jane's gift didn't work on me, but I was sure Caius and Aro would come up with a way. Force me to drink human blood, maybe.

Which was why I'd been shocked off my feet when Jane had decided not to kill Jozef but bring him back for interrogation instead. Corin had said something about disobedience, but Jane had answered that something about the situation didn't add up.

It had been a hellish captivity. She'd torn his throat so that he couldn't scream, put it in her pocket like a souvenir. We'd kept him tied up using steel rebars. He didn't have the human indignity of needing to go to the bathroom, so things hadn't gotten too messy, but I could remember cramps in my arms and legs just thinking about it. And what made him so different from us, really? That he'd fought on the losing side in a war hundreds of years ago? Then I remembered those people in Croatia, and I'd stopped feeling sorry for him.

Missing bits or not, he'd nearly escaped on the ship to Marsailles, and again in the Alps, when he realized where we were taking him. But he'd been brought back, first by Adal and Corin and the second time by Jane alone.

Once we'd reached Volterra, Jane had reattached Jozef's throat and immobilized him with her gift. When he lay on the floor, gulping and gasping, she'd dragged him before the masters by his hair like the prize he was.

It had been a fine bit of theater. Jane, as much the pride of the Volturi as she'd ever been, taking down a larger, stronger vampire, just like she always had, and a member of the traitorous Romanian coven on top of that, a war criminal. That had been a big deal to Caius, who was always going on about the provenance of everything in his art collection.

But it had been better than that. I'd seen it in Edward's eyes and in the way he moved, like a cat realizing that there was a rabbit nearby. He'd motioned to Aro, and I'd watched his face go grave.

It turned out that Jozef had known something. Edward had stepped forward and nodded to Jane. Alternating questions and bouts of pain, they'd made him spill his guts: He'd hadn't just been hiding out in Argentina. He'd been recruiting. It wasn't a large-scale operation, Edward told me later. It was slow; it was supposed to be, all so that we wouldn't notice. He'd been a point of contact to funnel interested parties to his masters in Europe. And he wasn't the only one.

We'd learned a few things about how they thought we operated, why they'd been able to hide from our library teams. Caius had made us all learn new procedures before the smoke of Jozef's body had left the air.

Before the next feast, the masters had called a special gathering. Even Edward and I had been ordered to attend. Caius had declared that Jane had saved lives, made the whole coven more effective, and that she deserved to be rewarded. Her eyes had been red as poppies by midnight.

That had started the tradition of earning boons. Calling in Jane for a little nerve-torture or Felix for some temporary dismemberment were still the masters' punishments of choice, but for milder offenses, for lapses in restraint or failures for which they preferred to humiliate rather than harm, they chose animal blood.

Even from here, I could hear the main entrance open, and it jerked me out of my memories. Before sunrise, at this quiet hour, there was no need to move through the tunnels. They'd come on the surface. Good. Fine. Whatever. I stood against the wall, visible but still. Inside, I was so damned excited that it was pathetic. I couldn't wait. I'd say, "So how was China?" and he'd say something witty, like we had a secret. Later, after the team had given its report, we'd sneak off together.

Demetri saw me but didn't break stride. Par for the course. At his right hand, Rolfe looked at me gruffly and then turned away. Odd. He usually tossed me a wink or something. Making fun of me was practically his hobby.

Edward was next, carrying something twisty and metal over his shoulder. I guessed it could be Master Caius's crossbow, but I didn't really care. After three weeks, just locking eyes with him was enough to make the room feel warm and right again. At least it did until I saw the warning in his gaze. Something was worrying him. Something hadn't gone right. I knew better than ask before the whole team had given their report. He would tell me everything later. He always told me everything.

Caroly came next with the case. I looked her over quickly as she blew a hank of her roofthatch hair out of her mouth. No new scars, no missing limbs. Good good good. She seemed upset about something, gave only half a smile when she saw me. Something had gone wrong then. Edward might be upset because a human had gotten killed, but if Caroly was rattled, then something was Volterra-wrong.

Last was Andrew, carrying something on his back, wrapped in a cloak. I'd trained Andrew myself, with Caroly's help. He'd been a good student but nothing special. He gave me the same nod he'd given me in lessons.

Demetri was already at the far end of the room, pushing open the doors to the feasting hall.

I actually left my place, walked toward the entranceway and peered around the corner into the passageway to see if Stephen was there.

Nothing.

I turned around just in time to watch the feasting hall doors close behind Andrew and whatever he was carrying, just in time to see the cloth part over a foot with a man's boot on it.

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drf24


	41. Ch 40 The Rules

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

Not much action in this one—depending on how one defines "action"—but it should answer a few questions. I am technically still taking constructive criticism on all chapters, but I would especially appreciate it on this one. Specifically, I want to make sure that the flashbacks aren't too confusing.

EDIT: Just fixing typos for now. Still taking concrit.

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"I'm not that girl," –Bella, _Eclipse_

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"A spy?"

Caius's eyes narrowed at Demetri. No one moved, not even to draw a breath.

From across the echoing space, Jane eyed me sharply. _He can't mean it._ She fixed me with her red-spear gaze. _Haven't you explained it to him?_

I closed my eyes.

Getting Stephen's body onto the train had been a bit of an issue, but after that, our journey home proceeded without incident. Even in these uncertain times, people still needed to ship freight overland, which meant cargo cars.

Stephen's cloud-gray cloak lay spread out on the tiles before the dais, Stephen himself was laid out in disjointed order before his three masters.

Aro had left his throne and was picking his way through the seven pieces of Stephen's limbs, neck and torso like a child marking out a space for hopscotch. "You're certain you didn't just miss it, my dear ones?" he asked. As always, the indulgence in his voice was a mask. Leaving even the fingernail of a dead vampire behind and unburned was a lapse beyond all forgiveness.

"They scream, master," I said out loud, feeling all eyes turn toward me. My team, my masters, Alec and Jane all witnessed me take responsibility. If it had been possible for me to be wrong, I might have worried. "The thoughts, they don't stop until we're burned. If Stephen's head had been anywhere nearby, I would have heard it."

"The Romanian must have taken it with him," Demetri finished. _Interrogation. Ransom. Intimidation_. He cycled through the possibilities with the perfect, heavy clicking of a well-maintained revolver.

"And you believe that we must have a _spy_?" Aro prompted.

_Can't_, Jane thought simply. _Not with Master. No spies. Tell him_.

She was right. A spy in Volterra? The idea was ...foolish didn't cover it. Aside from myself, there was Chelsea, Aro, even Caroly, Rolfe, and Heidi were good at sensing people and spotting liars.

Of course, a well-trained spy would have been able to hide his intentions from me. Avoiding Aro's touch would be another matter. It was possible to bury memories where Aro wouldn't necessarily notice them—I forgot how I knew that—but Aro's mind was always attracted to anything to do with the Romanians. A spy might not realize that, I mused. It might be possible for someone to go for months without being detected.

"Could be someone who _used_ to be guard, Masters," Rolfe pointed out. "One of our old newborns, maybe."

I kept my face impassive. Chelsea did a wonderful job on every newborn we dismissed. Of course, it was possible that her work didn't last.

"They had a strategy built around Edward and me," Demetri reminded him. "That means they had recent intel."

"Or they watched Master Caius's MO for a while and found a pattern," countered Rolfe. "Our library teams do the same thing all the time."

Caroly shook her head, "It must be someone very foolish, or someone who hates us very much."

_What's left of the Romanian coven would qualify on both counts_, Demetri thought darkly. _But it would be someone new, someone we wouldn't recognize_. The face on the rooftop had been unfamiliar to him. I watched him work through each scenario with quick, sure movements. Stefan and Vladimir had lost most of their original followers during their war with the masters. The people they attracted now tended to be rebels, unpredictable, the brightest and most erratic dregs of our society. Someone like that would stand out in the clockwork discipline of Volterra.

"Or it could be someone who doesn't know he's doing it," I said. "Maybe one of the newborns is leaking information without realizing," I said, ignoring the dirty look from Andrew.

There was a light scraping sound. I saw Andrew move as if to pick Stephen's undulating left foot off the floor and put it back on the cloak, but I motioned for him to be still.

"They had to know that the moment we suspected, Aro would touch everyone in the compound, even the staff."

I was halfway through nodding my agreement when a thought slithered into me like a slimy caterpillar toward Sulpicia's roses:

_There's one person Master Aro can't check._

I was across the room before anyone could breathe. "My Bella is no traitor!" I snarled.

Rolfe held up both hands, "I didn't say it!" he told me. _She never did want to be here and she's always mouthing off._

"That's nothing!" I found that I was in a fighting stance with my arms spread out.

_She could be a spy if she wanted._ Rolfe was still thinking. In that heavy moment, I thought that if I struck him hard enough, I could kill the thought, like swatting a fly.

"Edward, return to your place," clipped Aro. "Rolfe meant no insult to your mate. As to the nature of her gift; it is true."

_Don't call her my—_ I cut off the thought before I said it out loud. I nodded and backed away from Rolfe, "I am sorry, Masters. I am sorry, Rolfe."

_Don't be sorry. Just keep your nutjob temper in the box,_ thought Rolfe. I gave what I hoped was an apologetic nod.

"Masters," came a calm voice. Caroly pushed back her hood. Chunks of her straw-colored hair had wisped out of her ponytail, forming a messy halo around half of her face. "Masters, Bella couldn't have leaked our secrets to the Romanians." She nodded toward me. "They knew that Edward was on this mission. She wouldn't have put him in danger." _Or me_, she added mentally.

"That is true," Aro said out loud. Underneath, however, was that same frustration, that same desire to break open the shield on my Bella's mind and pull out all her secrets. This time, it had practical value.

_Unless Bella isn't really his mate,_ Rolfe thought.

"Not all women are Adrienne," I hissed quietly.

Rolfe shot me a look like daggers. All this time later, the way that woman had discarded his affections still wounded him.

"I'm sorry, Brother," I said. "I shouldn't have brought it up." Especially not here.

This was what our enemies wanted, discord among the guard. Most of the time, Rolfe and Bella got along well. He enjoyed teasing her—usually in the form of speculation about our sex life—and she played along with his fool façade, a willing straight man to his jester's act.

Rolfe stared straight ahead and said nothing. _She was my best girl_.

_She wasn't worthy of you, Rolfe._ I bit back the words. He didn't want to hear it. He never did.

I wondered if Rolfe had felt the true change for Adrienne. I hoped not, but I never had asked.

The formation of a vampire pair bond wasn't exactly voluntary. It was not in our nature to change the way humans did. We could learn things, but while humans could gradually become milder or wiser or bitterer over the slow course of years, we could not. We didn't warp or bend like wood; we cracked like stone. Alterations to our underlying personalities only came under the hammer of overwhelming feeling.

I knew it firsthand. Something essential had changed inside me that night in Forks when I'd heard her say my name in her sleep. I'd loved Bella before and I'd continued to love her after, but that had been my point of no return. That was when my love for her had become a permanent part of my identity.

But you could try to do it on purpose if you wanted. You just had to ...arrange the conditions. For me, the trigger had been Bella saying my name. For my old brother Emmett, it had been a kiss under a maple tree. Most vampires who decided that they wanted a pair bond stimulated one more ...physically. Sex could bring on intense emotions, and Adrienne's limited modesty would have been no barrier to securing Rolfe as her protector.

It didn't happen every time, of course. I'd heard that it wasn't hard to master the art of moderate-emotion sex, which was fine so long as both parties knew what it was. That wasn't always the case. It had pleased James to toy with Victoria in that way. He'd cared for her about as much as a rider cared for a useful mount, but her thoughts toward him had seemed sincere.

It had been a long time since I'd thought of Victoria. There had been that rash of killings in and around Seattle during my first year in Volterra. Caius had sent Alec and Randall to investigate—I hadn't been considered trustworthy enough to send back to the States—but things had seemed to quiet down on their own. If Sam Uley and his wolves had had anything to do with it, they'd left no trace. I wondered if Victoria had survived the end of whatever her plans had been or if she'd turned to smoke along with her followers.

But Rolfe wasn't suggesting that I wasn't really Bella's. He was suggesting that Bella wasn't really mine, which was almost equally ridiculous. Except that, Bella _hadn't_ changed, not as a vampire. She'd been turned already loving me. I took in a breath. Rolfe. Andrew. Caroly. Demetri. Jane. Alec. All my masters but Marcus. That was the part that the coven would have trouble understanding—that a human could truly love me. But she did.

My moment in the spotlight of Aro's anger had brought me clarity, all those years ago, when I'd thought I was about to die. The thought of leaving her, or of lingering in some crippled form, no use to her ever had thrown the whole universe into relief.

Adal's turning had gone well. He'd woken up not quite as calm as Bella had been, but close enough to be clear that something was working. The multi-year project of working out the details had allowed me to repair my relationship with Master Aro somewhat. The fact that Jane had started to get better practically the same hour as her first meal of animal blood had undoubtedly helped.

The cause of her illness had never been found. Aro still wondered about it occasionally, lining up clues and symptoms in the perfect abacus of his mind. But the coven was satisfied. My body was spared. I had succeeded in one of my impossible tasks. And Bella had told me she loved me.

I'd finally figured out what person I wanted to be. If I couldn't be Carlisle's loyal son, then I'd be the man I saw in Bella's eyes, the person I felt like when she was in my arms. I'd remembered what Carlisle had told me. I had my father's blessing, and Bella's eyes held nothing but "yes." I'd wanted her, and she'd been within my reach. There seemed to be no more or less to it than that.

But it had been more complicated. Of course it had been more complicated. It was Volterra.

In the compound, it could take days to get a moment alone, especially with my unpredictable schedule and her with Adal and Caroly to train. I'd caught up with her coming down from the tower after sunset one day. I could still feel the fibers of her sleeve through my fingers.

"I want to talk to you," I'd whispered into her ear.

"Roof garden," she'd murmured back.

I should have known when I'd felt her smile against my skin. "Talk" was a common euphemism in Volterra. The minute the door to the roof access closed behind us, Bella's hands had been on me, pulling me down for a kiss. I couldn't say that I didn't respond enthusiastically. For some reason I'd kept thinking that my news could keep a minute and another minute.

The next thing I'd known, my lips were on her neck and she'd been making that sound I liked, the high-pitched "don't stop quite yet, Edward" sound as her hands slipped under my cloak to rub my back.

I'd planned to be eloquent. I'd gone over the words over and over in my head. Only now my mind was such a muddle that I couldn't find where I'd put anything.

"You love me?" The words had slurred against her cheek.

"Yes," she'd whispered.

"That's never going to change," I'd continued as I'd kissed her neck.

"Never," the word slipped into me like a night breeze.

"I'm what you want," I'd said.

"Yes."

I'd cupped her face in both hands and kissed her, brushing her hair aside so that I could see her eyes. "Marry me," I'd said.

"What?" She'd pulled back, both hands on my shoulders, gaping as if I'd just dumped cold water on her.

"Isabella Swan, I want you to marry me," I'd said, somehow wondering if she hadn't heard me properly. "We should be married."

She looked as if I'd started speaking Russian—this had been before she'd learned it—and I'd felt some of my certainty drain away. This wasn't the reaction I'd been expecting. Was it because I didn't have a ring and hadn't gone down on one knee? No, that couldn't be it. I hadn't phrased it as a question either, but that was easy enough to fix.

"Will you do it, Bella?" I'd said. "Will you marry me?"

"Edward, we don't need to get _married_."

It had been very confusing. Everything about the way she'd acted toward me suggested that she wanted to be with me physically, that she loved me, and that she didn't want to leave me—she could have walked free from Volterra if she'd been willing to leave me—and as far as I'd understood in those days, all those things together added up to "married."

"Is this because your parents got divorced early?" I'd asked. Her eyes had flashed as her mouth opened. "I'm sorry," I'd said quickly. "What happened between Charlie and Renee isn't my business."

"No, it's not that," she'd said, but whatever it was had put something hollow behind her eyes. Something about this upset her. I'd just offered her my vow, _myself_, and the prospect _upset_ her.

Fear of commitment of all things? That made no sense. She hadn't shown the remotest interest in any of the other men in Volterra, and—

_In_ Volterra. There was someone who wasn't in Volterra. She'd even told me that she loved him. Well he couldn't have her.

That or something just as wicked must have shown on my face.

"Edward?" she'd asked. "Edward, I don't mean to— I mean I'm glad you asked, and—"

"No you're not," I said.

"Then what are you thinking?" she asked cautiously.

_Something very unbecoming_, I'd thought. She'd be willing to sleep with me but not make me any promises? I'd meet her needs until she got back to Forks? _That might not be it_, I told myself. That stupid wolf boy had gotten me in trouble with Bella before, and he hadn't even been present. I wouldn't mess things up over him again, not if I could help it.

Bella licked her lips. "Look, Edward, you're right: I love you and you love me," she'd told me. "Do we really need a piece of paper saying so?"

"Marriage isn't a of paper," I'd answered. "It's a promise that we make to each other and to our community."

"But our community already thinks we're married," she'd said.

"No, the community thinks we're mates. That's not the same thing."

"Some societies say that living together _is_ marriage," she'd told me.

"That's lovely," I'd answered, regretting finding her that anthropology book. "We're not from one of them."

"Yes we are," she'd said. "We're vampires."

I shook my head. If she'd really thought that we were already married, she wouldn't care about whether we had a ceremony or not. "That's not it," I said. "Look, I don't want to argue this on logical grounds. This isn't a commercial transaction."

"In some cultures it was," she added glibly.

"Bella, could you please not joke about this?" I asked. "I don't want to know about marriage customs among the Trobriand islanders. I want to know why _you_ don't want to marry _me_."

"Because it's _embarrassing!_" she'd answered. "I'm not _that girl, _Edward. The one who drops out of high school and gets married like some small-town hick who got knocked up by her boyfriend! Do you know what people would think? People don't just get married at nineteen! Not smart people, not responsible, mature people. I'm not that girl."

I looked away. She _wasn't_ that girl. Not any more.

"Bella, you're a vampire now. None of those reasons to postpone marriage apply to you," I told her. "And none of the people who would criticize you for marrying young are ...ever likely to find out about it." Or see either of us again.

"I don't like that either," she'd said.

"Neither do I." It was the truth.

"Look, if what you told me is true, then we're always going to be like this," she'd said with hand on my arm. "I can't fall out of love with you. I'm going to love you _forever_," and the words had felt good.

"But you didn't have a choice about that," I'd pointed out. "My love for you was like a storm," I'd told her, "I couldn't have stopped it if I'd wanted."

"What's so bad about that?"

"Well you can fall in love with someone without meaning to, but you can't marry them without meaning to. I want you to _decide_ that you love me."

"But I do!"

"That's good," I'd said. "Say it just like that."

"Edward!"

"I'm greedy, Bella," I'd said. "I want that vampire part of you. I do. But I want more," I'd put my hands around her waist and pulled her toward me. "I want your heart," I'd murmured, brushing her hair away from her ear, "I want your mind, all the way down to its roots," I said, brushing my fingers down her neck. "And I want your reason," I'd whispered. "I want the rational, surface part of your mind, because _that's_ the part that calls the shots."

I'd said the next part like a prayer into the empty sky. "Tell the world that you've chosen me, even if no one but us is listening."

That had gotten to her. That had meant something, and I could see it in her eyes.

"Edward... I need to think."

I'd released her. "That's fair," I'd said. It wasn't good. In fact this whole exchange had been crushingly disappointing, but it was certainly _fair_, albeit in a way that felt completely unfair_._ "We should talk more after you think."

So I'd have to convince her. Well I could work with that. Now that Adalfieri had woken up calm and Jane was on the mend, I'd finally had time.

Aro was still watching Caroly, weighing her words, wondering if Bella might have been our spy after all. From behind him, Caius turned his eyes toward the third throne. Marcus gave an affirmative shrug.

_The girl is right. She wouldn't risk him. He's too precious to her,_ he thought, with a small, distant smile. My bond with Bella was one of his few joys. Although it had never regained the same blazing intensity that had stirred him out of his torpor all those years ago, there was a certain quiet sheen to it, a rare vibrancy that soothed him. Aro might be frustrated, but Caius was willing to take Marcus at his word—Bella would not betray us.

"Preposterous as it is, it's easy enough to verify," Master Marcus said simply. _Bring all of the guard in, one by one. Don't tell them why, and touch them, Brother._ He didn't even bother to say it out loud. Why waste the effort when Aro would read it off him anyway? At times, it pained me to see it.

Aro returned to his throne, lightly grasping Marcus's hand as he did so. I saw him nod once. "The four of you are to say nothing of Demetri's hypothesis to the rest of the guard," he told us. "Jane, Alec, begin with the evening library shift, and have everyone come to us, one at a time. Do not say why." I watched him form a cover story in his mind as he looked down at Stephen's quivering remains. Another unprecedented event. He would ask each member of the coven what they thought, whether they believed Stephen's body should be preserved or euthanized. For many, it would be an emotional moment. There would be opportunities to touch the guard unobtrusively.

"That includes little Bella," Aro concluded. "She will come in with the rest of her shift, not before and not after." To conceal the reason for the consults, I saw. But he would touch her again. He would try to read her. He would solve the riddle of her mind one day. "You may go."

_Yes, Caroly's reasoning_ _is sound,_ he thought, _but so is Rolfe's. Little Bella has never been content here. She may be our culprit._ Aro imagined Bella's face, the day she'd been brought into this room, shivering in my arms like a perfect little piece of leverage against Carlisle's rebel son. She'd been her own big bag of trouble ever since. _If she is our culprit, young Edward won't be best pleased if she must pay the price for her crimes._ I watched as he considered this, considered losing me to listlessness, execution or desertion, any of the things that might be expected of me if my masters put an end to my Bella.

Aro met my eyes this time, fully aware that I was reading him.

_Oh well_, he thought.

_It will not happen, Master_, I thought firmly. He'd read it off me when he read it off me. _It will not happen because it is not her._

Demetri bowed and we all followed suit. I saw Rolfe look over his shoulder at me as we made for the door. "You know I didn't mean it like that," Rolfe muttered as they closed behind us. "It's only that _someone_ with her powers _could_ trick the masters. That's all I meant."

"Of course," I answered tightly, but that wouldn't stop Aro from suspecting her, would it? "But you have to admit that the prospect is ridiculous. My Bella is loyal," and it sounded too insistent even to me. "Everyone knows that."

Caroly grasped my shoulder and gave half a smile, the one that Bella said looked like mine. "She's loyal to _you_, Edward. That's all that people really know."

"She's not the one," I said. "She's not that person." Bella didn't like living in Volterra but endanger the whole world by bringing it down? Never.

"Oh, I know," said Rolfe, holding up both hands.

"She's not that stupid," I repeated.

"'Course she isn't. Master Aro will find the real one and that'll be the end."

"Stop talking," Demetri said simply. "This mission is ended but I have one last instruction for you," he said. "Do as the masters ordered. Do not speak of Master Aro's plan until it is done. You are all ordered to act normally. Do what you usually do after a mission."

Caroly smiled brightly. She usually met up with Renata, who deplored the condition of her hair and spent a good twenty minutes putting it right. Rolfe gave me a good-natured leer. _Do what you usually do, right? Or who you usually do, in milk-boy's case._

I rolled my eyes. He was trying to crack jokes to cut the tension. He should have chosen a different topic.

_At least one of us is getting his gun holstered,_ he thought.

"Rolfe," I said sternly.

"Oh come on. Let me be a little vicarious. She's been your mate for twenty years. It's not some secret that you two get naked."

"I have asked you repeatedly not to call her that," I said dully. "At the very least, it sounds strange when we're in the field."

"We're not in the field," Rolfe told me, setting his booted feet heavily on the stone. "Look Edward, I know you're a pretentious son of a bitch, and I'm cool with it, really. You don't want the same things that normal people want. You'd rather suck down pig guts than proper food." _You want to pretend that you're still like them._ "You like to use the human names for things. I get it," he said, putting his hands on his hips, "but do _not_ ask me to join in. She's your mate and that's what I'll call her."

"You're still mad that I had Demetri stand up for me, aren't you?" I asked.

"No I am not," he said. "I don't care about your stupid fake human ceremony." _Just because he and Demetri are Caius's new wonder twins. Freaking gifted folks sticking together and all._

I put my hand on his arm. "That's not it. I wanted you to be there," I said, "but who knew when you were getting back from Nambia, and there aren't many opportunities to have a ceremony without leaving a paper trail—"

"Yeah, Demetri told me that human judge nearly peed his robes, and you had to roofie him after. I'm shocked Caius let you get away with it." _I never get to wear my tux._

"It was a priest, and he was under the impression that Bella and I were an eloping Belgian couple," I corrected. "No one's dry cleaning bill went up." Well, my clothes had suffered a few ground-in dust stains after Bella had realized that I'd told the priest she was pregnant, but that was neither here nor there. There were alliances that had had less auspicious beginnings than the groom lying to a man of the cloth and the bride knocking the groom down a gully. Probably.

_I know what else didn't go up_, he thought sullenly.

"Rolfe!" I snapped. Damn why did I have to live down something that shouldn't have been anyone's business but Bella's and mine?

"I didn't say it!" he said.

"No," I said. "No you didn't, Rolfe. I appreciate that."

_And I appreciate you not ripping into me again. Anger management, Edward!_

It was my turn to roll my eyes. Life with Bella had been a lesson in tolerating frustration from the very beginning.

For several days after my first proposal, I hadn't asked Bella to meet me alone. I hadn't wanted to pressure her. Or rather, I'd decided not to pressure her. I'd absolutely wanted to. There was also my pride to consider. I didn't want anyone to know I'd been rejected.

Of course, what I wanted did not mean much when it came to Master Aro.

_She's right, you know,_ Aro had told me during a lull in the early morning library shift. _Every man in Volterra respects the pair bond, and she is your acknowledged mate. None will offend your honor or hers. Marriage ceremonies are a human practice meant to identify the fathers of children and determine the inheritance of property after death. We have no need of it._

I'd been determined to ignore him, to throw my thoughts into a news feature on fishing off the coast of France, but I couldn't help observing, _But you are married, Master._

_Those were different times_, he clipped back. But I could see fragmented images in his mind of a proud and haughty virgin quite determined to be sure of her suitor before fulfilling his desires. _My Sulpicia is a woman of old-fashioned discipline and consummate virtue_, he'd added defensively.

_I do not doubt it, sir_, I'd answered. From what Bella had said about her time in the Tower, the wives were very particular about that aspect of their lives, and of their servants' lives.

_Do not think about the Tower_, he'd told me.

_Yes sir._ And he'd finally let me get back to work.

As much as I disliked Aro's interest in my love life, the experience had helped me figure out a few things. One of the purposes of marriage _was_ to declare to the world that two people were no longer available. Everyone in Volterra _did_ already know, or thought that they knew. And I'd realized that Bella wasn't the only one who needed to come up with a real explanation. Not everyone had spent years with Emmett and Rosalie, who lived half their lives with the world thinking they were carrying on a borderline incestuous foster-on-foster liaison.

That didn't change my goals, however. I knew that I wanted Bella's hand and her vow. I also knew that Bella was unlikely to be swayed by the idea of having me as her protector—first off, she knew I'd protect her no matter what, second, she'd done a reasonably decent job of protecting herself those past few months, and third, she just wasn't that mercenary. As for the role and title of a respectable married woman, she'd made it quite clear that she was perfectly content to live in sin with me as my illicit paramour. I snorted. She deserved so much better.

For the first time in months, I'd consciously cursed myself for getting us stuck in Volterra. If she'd still been human, I just could have waited five or six years until Bella had satisfied herself that she'd become an adult. I'd closed my eyes and tried to picture Bella at twenty-five, then gave up. It would never happen, and there was no sense whimpering about it.

A day later, wed been in the upper library, practicing advanced German. I could still remember watching her hands move as I sat beside her, watching her fingers trace images in the air. She could be so gentle. She could be _so_ gentle. She deserved someone who'd treat her that way. She deserved someone who'd make her first time as perfect as she was.

"What are you staring at, Edward?" she'd asked.

I'd actually jumped. "It's—it's nothing," I'd said.

"Nothing?" she'd asked playfully.

I'd tucked a dark curl behind her ear and she'd caught my hand, pressing it against her temple. "Is that enough studying for one day?"

"Maybe," I'd murmured, leaning in to meet her kiss. Why not? We didn't need to be engaged to kiss. A moment later, one of her hands crept toward my knee and gently squeezed. I gave a little gasp and pressed my own hand down on top of hers.

"You know..." she'd said, in a tone that echoed words practiced over and over, "I still want to. I know I'm not crazy about ...the idea of getting married, but I have no doubts that I want to be with you."

My mouth must have fallen open, but probably not for the reason she'd thought.

"Any time you want," she'd promised in a low voice. "What_ever_ you want."

I'd looked away then, smiling. She'd probably completely misinterpreted it, poor thing. I'd just had an epiphany. I looked into her eager amber eyes and realized that _I had something she wanted._ It wasn't the kindest way to get a girl to say yes, but if she she'd rejected me and, to my mind, that meant I was allowed to make her squirm a little.

"Nothing we could do together would be bad," she told me eagerly. "I love you and you love me—forever."

"I know it," I'd said, lifting her hand to my lips. I breathed in and said simply: "Marry me first."

"What?" she'd asked.

"If you want me to have sex with you, you have to marry me first," I'd said plainly. "It's hardly an unusual condition."

"Yes, but..." I'd watched the wheels clicking in her head. I couldn't hear her, but I still knew what she was thinking: _Yes, but isn't it the girl who insists on marriage before sex? Yes, but aren't you supposed to take whatever I offer you and still beg for more like the insatiable caveman that you are?_ Well two could play at that game. Thank you, feminism. I was asserting my equal rights.

I'd kissed the corner of her mouth, gentle as a whisper. "Marry me," I murmured again as her eyes slid closed. I hadn't fought fair against her wolf boy, and I wasn't planning on starting now. "Look, if being married embarrasses you, then I won't go around calling you my fiancé," I'd said. "I won't make a big deal of it. We can have as quiet a ceremony as you want, so long as it's real. But if you want to do more than we've been doing, then yes, you have to marry me first."

Bella'd leaned back, looking at me through narrowed eyes. "Let's say I say yes," she'd said. "Would we really need to wait? Wouldn't it be enough to be ...engaged?" she let her fingers flex on my hip, and she felt very engaging indeed.

I breathed out, trying—and probably failing—to keep my expression smooth. It shouldn't have made any difference, being engaged or not, but it did. "And if I said yes," I told her, "and did what you wanted, what would prevent you from going back on your word?"

"Um..." she looked away sheepishly. Yup, didn't need to read her mind to know that had been her plan.

"Oh?" I asked. "You have us be one of those couples who stays engaged and puts the real thing off indefinitely?"

"As far as I'm concerned, we _are_ the real thing," she countered. "Besides, what if we get married and then _you_ get cold feet?" she asked. I'd wondered if she understood the expression "cold feet" properly. How could I get cold feet _after_ we were married? "After all, you've gone your whole life without." Without what? "Maybe," she said cautiously, "you're just not... a very sexual person. Shouldn't we make sure before we walk down the aisle?"

Her words had stopped me like stones. I couldn't have been more upset if she'd punched me. It was the conventional wisdom of the twenty-first century. Have sex first and make sure you're "compatible." Except many couples did live together first, only to end up falling out of synch after a couple of years anyway. That kind of change was part of being human.

Well I wasn't human. I wasn't happy either. I'd gotten used to Bella doubting my sincerity—it was my own fault, after all—but I found that I did not like her doubting other parts of me either.

Bella had gulped. "Um, I—I only mean that you're from a time when sex was seen as dirty and maybe you wouldn't be so conflicted if we just—"

I'd dropped her hand and pinned her against the far wall before either of us could draw breath. Ignoring her startled shout, I'd cupped her face in my hands and kissed her. Hard. After a surprised squeak, she kissed me back, settling her arms around my neck. I'd shivered at the feeling and let my thoughts drift into what she'd said about engagement being enough, about what I'd do with my betrothal privileges. One of my hands slipped down to the small of her back, where I gently guided her toward me until her belly was pressed against me through our clothes.

I'd allowed myself a shock of pleasure at her little gasp. "Can you feel that?" I'd asked, pressing her to me until there could be no uncertainty about what I meant.

She'd met my eyes, and—ruthless minx—she'd wet her lips.

"You see?" I'd asked, trying not to breathe too hard. "I am _not_ conflicted about fulfilling my side of the bargain. I am _in no way_ reluctant to give you what you want." I met her eyes, amber just starting to darken with thirst. I knew the feeling. "Far from it."

I leaned in until she could feel my breath against her ear, "Therefore..." I began with what had to have been my most evil smirk ever.

"Edward—" she'd said, fingers tensing on my shoulders.

"_...you first_."

She looked at me sideways. "Me first what?"

"You heard me." Oh, I had her where I wanted her—relatively speaking;I _wanted_ her at the altar—and she knew it. "You. First."

Her mouth hung open. One of her eyelids twitched. I'd have to remember that: When my lady's eyelids twitched, it meant she was mad enough to spit alley cats. It had proven true over the years.

"Don't feel too bad, Bella," I'd said. "We'll be married for a long time. I'm sure you'll outsmart me a time or two. The wife usually does." I'd tapped the side of my head. "Years of overhearing."

"You— You—" I remembered thinking that if she could blush, she'd be absolutely purple. I should have felt guilty, but I didn't. After all, she'd insulted my manhood a few minutes previously. She breathed in, as heavily as a moose snorting out the cold. "So that's it? You're just deciding _on your own_ that we should be married, and that's that?"

That sobered me up. "Of course not," I said.

"Well that's what you're doing," she said. "Edward, you can't put me in this position. I need you more than I ever needed oxygen."

_But that's what being married is_. I'd managed to bite that one back. She didn't think so; she'd made that clear. There was no sense going around in circles. "I feel the same way."

Her eyes narrowed. She stepped toward me until we were nearly touching. She could have brushed against me only by taking a breath.

"You can't convince me to change my mind," I said quickly.

"Oh Edward," she said, swaying deliciously as she walked toward me. "I can tell when you're lying, remember?"

I couldn't say that I hadn't liked _anything_ about the next few weeks. We circled around each other like chess players learning their master moves, only instead of pawns and rooks... She'd call me over, or I'd call her, but I was always the one under pressure. I had to stop at the right time, every time. I had to make her want me so badly that she couldn't stand it.

In that time, I'd learned that she liked it when I bit down just barely on the edges of her ears. I'd learned that I liked it when she kissed my chest just between where the second and third buttons of my shirt would be. I'd learned what she was like when she was frustrated beyond belief. I'd learned that she gave as good as she got and didn't give up. I'd learned that if I didn't marry her soon, I would _die_.

I never realized how close to the fire I'd come. I still didn't know. I didn't want to.

Insight could come from such strange places.

"You shouldn't play around with your girl like that," Rolfe had told me one day.

I'd actually gaped at him. "How did—"

"Bella ranted to Renata and Renata told me," he'd answered.

"You shouldn't pay attention to what Renata says," I'd told him. "She's been funny ever since—Ever since Marcell died," I'd corrected myself quickly.

"What are you talking about? She's cheerful as a daisy. Anyway, if Renata knows, then count on the whole coven to know eventually."

"Wonderful," I'd muttered. "I'll have to talk to Bella about keeping our private matters private."

"Sounds like a great way to get your head bitten off if you ask me," said Rolfe. "You keep messing her around, someone else is going to offer to ease her pain."

The look I'd given him must have shot daggers.

"What-what not _me!_" he'd protested, holding up both hands. "You've read my mind. You know I like 'em with more meat on their bones! I'm just saying that if you keep revving her up like that—" _not to mention yourself you prissy son of a bitch; you have been hell and a half to work with_ "—then something bad is going to happen. Maybe she won't cheat on you but she might rip out someone's pancreas."

"She can stop this any time she wants," I'd said.

"Yeah," said Rolfe, "by giving in to you—not even to you. To some set of rules that you picked out because you felt like it," he'd said. "What if _that's_ what she doesn't want to do? Maybe she'll give you what you want if you take the risk of trusting _her_ first." His voice had dropped then, almost out of human hearing, "Look, I know you didn't ...want to be here. I know you feel like you can't control anything that counts, but passing it on to Bella isn't fair."

"You don't know what you're talking about," I'd said, shaking my head.

"Of course I don't," said Rolfe in a perfectly calm, perfectly infuriating tone.

The nerve of him, I'd thought. And to think I'd once considered his sense of people to be a gift. Accusing me of manipulating and Bella when I'd been nothing but perfectly clear.

Except...

And...

Oh God.

No wonder she didn't want to marry me, I'd realized. I was an idiot.

Volterra being Volterra, it was another two days before our schedules met again, and I'd been jumpy as a cat the whole time. Caius had been considering sending me with Demetri to hunt a criminal in Ukraine, and missions like that could take months. I didn't want to leave with this unsettled.

I'd been waiting for her at the landing beneath the tower. She gave me the same sizing-up, I-can-beat-you-and-you'll-like-it look that had been sending shivers down my spine for the past three weeks. Renata had actually rolled her eyes before scurrying off.

Bella had walked toward, me placing a hand on my forearm, opening her mouth as she breathed in to speak whatever seductive or attempted-seductive words she'd put together this time.

"I give up," I'd said.

"Give up what?"

I rolled my eyes and ducked the pun. "I mean our little battle of wills. You win. I give up."

"'You win'?" she asked, one hand suddenly jutting out from her hip.

"Okay, so it's not the most romantic thing to say. And not just 'you win.' 'You win and I'm sorry.'"

She'd stared at me with narrowed eyes, as if expecting a trick. I'd supposed that I'd deserved that..

I'd taken her hand from my arm and kissed the backs of her fingers, "'You win' means whenever you want, whatever you want," I'd said, echoing her words.

"What if I'm mad at you and I don't want at all?" she'd asked.

"Then I wait," I'd answered. "No more games. Engaged is enough. You tell me you'll marry me, and I'll take you at your word."

"What if I don't want to get married period?"

I took a breath. I'd been ready for this. "That's a lot to ask me to accept," I'd said. "This means a great deal to me."

"Why, Edward?" she'd asked. "It's just a ceremony. I was raised to shudder at the thought of marriage," she'd said.

"Well I wasn't," I'd answered. "It didn't work for Charlie and Renee, but Carlisle and Esme, Emmett and Rose, even my human parents, they made it look like that was how the world was supposed to be, like it was natural. It's..." I met her eyes. "You say you're not that girl, but I was always that boy."

"What do you mean?"

I wasn't sure myself, but I kept talking, "I mean that if I hadn't been so caught up in the idea of being a soldier and—" I shook my head. "No, even then. If I'd met you back then, there is no doubt in my mind of how I would have proceeded. I would have stopped at nothing to secure your hand."

Bella had grown quiet. Her eyes were on me and seemed far away at the same time, as if I had grown deep.

"You're talking about your human days," she said at last.

"Yes." I wasn't sure where she was going with this, but the concrete wall she'd been the past three weeks finally looked like it had a crack. "Human, ten years later, fifty years later. It would have been the same."

"So this isn't about Volterra?" she asked baldly.

My eyebrows shot up. "Volterra?" I'd asked. "Where does Volterra come into it?" Did she think Marcus had ordered me to ask? My duty was my duty, but I did have limits.

"'A promise we make to our community'?" she echoed. "Edward, people get married when they want to settle down. After they've completed their educations and started their careers and ...decided where they want to live."

_Renée's words_, I'd realized. It had sounded like her, and it matched both her disastrously short-lived marriage to Charlie and her more successful union with Phil.

It was like a weight lifting. Understanding more about Bella always was. This one shouldn't have been as much of a milestone. It was all Bella could do to keep from screaming that she didn't like Volterra. Of course she didn't want it in her marriage bed.

"So... this might be less about you settling into Volterra and more about being the same person you were before Volterra?" she asked.

I felt as if I were caught between two magnets. A thousand strident words about how much I loved her slammed against my now-acute reflex about not saying anything criminal out loud.

_Volterra can go hang_. Treason.

_I love you more than any good this place could do_. Still treason.

_I don't want to settle here_. Less troublesome, but still a weapon in the hand of anyone who overheard.

I licked my lips, choosing carefully, and wishing to heaven that she were my only audience. "I want to live where you are."

"Even if that's not—"

"Careful," I said, one finger touching her lips, lighter than a moth. I pulled my hand away slowly. "Like you said to me," I'd told her, "I'm not going anywhere without you."

She'd stared at me a long time, fingers slowly growing tight on my arms, eyes an impossible gold.

"Then yes," she'd said.

She'd suffered to let me pick her up and spin her in the air. She'd suffered through three months until I could put the IDs together. She'd suffered through a ten-minute ceremony led by a sympathetic but very drunk Luxembourger priest. She'd suffered through eighteen and a half years of making me so damned happy that I could sometimes forget everything we'd lost.

"Edward!" came a familiar voice. I snapped out of my reminiscing.

"Well speak of the devil," said Rolfe. "Hi Bella."

"Hello Rolfe," she said, still looking at me. I gave her a quick peck on the cheek, our usual preliminary reunion celebration. She already knew something was wrong, and she wanted to draw me away so that I could give her the uncensored version. I guessed most married couples got like this, in time.

"Look, it's probably going to be fine."

"Thank you, Rolfe," I said.

"I'll just—" he waved toward anywhere else.

"That would be good," I clipped.

I took Bella by the arm, and we fit together with practiced ease. "Upper library?"

She shook her head. "Renata's in there with Darien. Art gallery should be empty."

I nodded, trying to look happy. There was nothing remotely unusual about a mated couple finding a private corner after a long separation. In fact, it was what we usually did after most missions.

My human parents had been right about one thing. The harder something was to get, the more I valued it. And Bella had been harder than I'd thought.

"What is it?" she'd asked, voice like the swishing whisper of a snake fleeing into the underbrush.

Aro had ordered me to be silent, and he expected me to obey, but I'd made other vows in my time. I watched her hair sway across the back of her cloak as we slipped up the stairs. She was a mystery to me; that was what I liked about her, but this time, it meant that I couldn't tell Aro what I'd seen in her thoughts and prove that she was above suspicion.

Somewhere, deep down, I didn't want to reach beneath her shield and hear her thoughts. This was odd to me, because I could _remember_ wanting to, back in Forks. I could remember it so acutely...

It might be nothing. Aro might find the spy in an hour and he might be ashes by tonight, but if they didn't find the culprit, or worse, if there _was_ no culprit, then the slashing rumors of this place would gather like a whirlwind around some easy target.

She wasn't that girl. But I was the only one who knew it.

"You're in danger, my love," I'd told her, closing the door behind us. "We all are."

.

.

.

I swear, _that_ had to have been how the "I'm more willing than you are" scene in _Eclipse_ was supposed to go before the censors got to it. Yes, Eddie's being more than a bit manipulative and unilateral. It's to the credit of the entire fandom that most of us make Edward and Bella both a little more mentally healthy, but I do have to keep him a _little_ in character, and canon Edward gets what he wants by, to put a good light on it, taking charge.

Portions of the dialogue from this chapter were lifted from _Eclipse_ and _Breaking Dawn_, though the circumstances were somewhat different.

drf24


	42. Ch 41 Scars

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

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"Maybe that was why I'd been unable to imagine that I would likebeing married until after I already was," –Bella, _Breaking Dawn_

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"It must have been the scar."

Edward was doing that thing where he almost pressed his lips together but not really. He did that whenever I took what he'd said and pulled it in a direction he didn't want. Well screw it. There wasn't shit I could do about what Aro thought.

"The three newborns we lost in Bellarus back in '15," I went on. Simon, Trinette and Boris. "They all had the same scar in the same place. Any nomad knows that hypodermic needles can't break vampire skin. Someone from that fight must have figured out what it was. It doesn't take more than a few years of trial and error to figure out the rest."

Turning a vampire didn't usually leave marks. I'd even lost a few from my human days, like the one I'd got motorcycling with Jacob. I'd only kept the one venom scar on my wrist, though I could tell from Edward and Caroly that reattached limbs left marks too, especially if that dumbass Felix didn't look at what he was doing.

"To hear Master Caius talk, the Romanians are nothing but determined," said Edward. "Bella, we need to worry about you."

"Edward—"

"Bella, the master thinks it could be you," Edward said quickly. "You and I know that's ridiculous, some of our friends know it's ridiculous, but he has never liked the fact that your mind will not yield to him."

Whereas I did like it. I liked it a lot.

He smiled, not his real smile, just a little smugness at the corner of his mouth. This was Edward's I-have-a-plan smile. If I were smart, I'd duck and cover every time I saw it, but he'd worn it just before too many good moments.

"My cousin Kate was able to change the way her powers worked," he said. I paused, wondering where he was going with this. "She does a shock, like Jane almost, but she has to be touching her victim. It used to be that she could only send the current through the palms of her hands, but with practice, she was able to overpower an assailant touching any part of her skin."

I held in a smile. Edward didn't realize, but I already knew how a vampires power could get stronger. I didn't even need to be in the same room with him to protect him from Chelsea any more. Other people were harder to target, not that I risked it.

"Okay, that's great for her," I answered. "What's your point?"

"Well maybe we could find someone to teach you how to drop your shield."

There he was, eager and hopeful. I felt like he'd pushed a railroad spike into my guts.

"What?"

"If Aro could only read you, then you'd be above suspicion," he said earnestly. "We wouldn't have to worry about proving you innocent; he'd _know_," he finished with a self-satisfied smile, like a kid who'd solved the hardest problem in math class and was sure he had the right answer. It was like the floor falling out from underneath me.

"No, no he stays out," I said quickly, then fought the urge to smack my hands over my mouth. "I mean... I haven't always been the most ...patriotic."

"Bella," Edward said comfortingly, "_everyone_ in Volterra has disloyal thoughts from time to time. Well except maybe Jane. Aro's used to it. Even if you did think something that merited punishment, that's better than getting executed as a traitor."

I swallowed. Yes, Aro might forgive me for thinking that he was a cantankerous old tyrant. The part where I'd come up with over sixteen specific blueprints for dispersing his coven and that one of them had almost worked? Not so much. And then there was what I kept hidden for Edward. I'd kept my promise. I thought about Alice every day.

"I know you don't want to lose your privacy," he said, "but it needs to be done. If Aro thinks that he'd get to see inside your mind, he might even allow you to visit Alaska and learn from Kate."

I shook my head. "No, he'd just tell us to invite Kate here." And then she would find herself unable to leave. Or suddenly uninterested in leaving.

Edward looked away, corner of his mouth twisting the way it did when he knew I was not-saying something pointed about the masters. "This could be moot. In all likelihood," he said, "Aro will uncover the spy today."

"Unless there is no spy," I pointed out. "If this really was a coincidence, or if it's not but they're not using a person in the guard..."

"Then we still have a problem." Edward breathed in and out.

I didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. "Is everyone going to see Aro?"

Edward nodded. "To answer a question about Stephen, ostensibly. You go with your shift."

"Then we have a while."

It was one of the things that we didn't need to say out loud. It was his first day back from a mission and the rest of the coven was distracted. There was part of the roof that could not be seen from the tower or any of the surrounding buildings.

Edward smiled, even though there were still shadows behind it. He knew what I knew: In Volterra, we had to take what we could get when we could get it. He let me take him by the hand and pull him away.

I'd never gotten used to the idea of being married. I'd thought it would grow on me with time, but it hadn't. Edward had told me once that vampires became frozen, that all our tastes and personality traits were fixed. It looked like I was fixed as someone who didn't need a ring to be happy. He loved me and I loved him. I didn't feel any different after we'd said the words in a church with Caroly holding some flowers for me. Except for feeling pissed off at him for telling the priest that I was some dumb-as-shit knocked up Flemish girl.

I'd always known that Edward would have a problem with sex. Love or not, a guy didn't go eighty years without doing it even once if he didn't have _some_ issues. I'd figured that marriage was his psychological out. Edward had about a million things that he felt guilty about, and if five minutes in front of a priest took one of them away, then I could force a smile and get through it. Besides, the Edward I'd known from Forks had been a person of uncompromising moral standards. If I could give him a chance to be that man again, even just for a few minutes, then I'd do it. And the fact that it was pretty much a "screw you" to the masters took a lot of the fake out of my smile.

Edward had been willing to hold up his end of the bargain that night. There was a big, empty patch of woods that we could have used. But stupid Demetri had said we'd had to get back. Technically, I guess we could have had sex on the train or in any of the places we'd hid during the next few sets of daylight hours, but to be perfectly honest, I hadn't wanted my first time to be a quickie in some storm drain with two other people pointedly pretending not to notice. I had never really liked the idea of getting intimate inside the Volterra compound, but after months of waiting and five days on the road, the practice tunnel had started to seem like a suite at the Hilton.

Unfortunately, when we'd gone to the masters to give our post-mission report, Demetri had mentioned Edward's little unauthorized side trip.

As Edward had later explained to me, Caius hadn't liked the idea of members of the guard running personal errands while on missions. Aro didn't like anything that reminded him that Edward was still loyal to Carlisle—somehow marrying me counted. Neither of them liked anyone in the guard actually meeting the definition for the word "wife," but that was supposed to be a secret. Marcus was just annoyed that we hadn't told him about the wedding ahead of time. Seemed he'd been looking forward to it. I imagined him with a little scrapbook full of fabric swatches. Most days, I was glad that Alice wasn't stuck here in Volterra with us, but at that point I'd been especially happy. The two of them together would have made it a spectacle of humiliating proportions.

In a sane world, they'd just have sent for Jane, let her zap Edward a few times, maybe have Heidi knock me around a bit, and then call it a night. But Caius in particular felt like being passive aggressive. Aro smiled and congratulated me as "Mrs. Masen," and Edward had spent the next three weeks at his side almost twenty-four seven. The few times when they did let him off, I was always slotted to work the library, train newborns or mind the wives.

I had to be the only woman in the modern world who'd still been a virgin a month after her wedding night. I'd been prepared for that, actually, except I'd figured it would be Edward's issues necessitating the take-it-slow route, not Aro's determination to make everyone else as miserable as he was.

As far as I was concerned, being married had exactly one upside. I'd been up in the tower, trying to zone out with some very frustrated visuals of what I'd _like_ to have been doing with Edward, when Old Bitch Two had lurched out of her chair and yanked my left hand half off my wrist. I'd nearly jumped out of my skin. I'd thought she'd been going to rip off my fingers like she'd done to Salome after she'd pruned the roses wrong.

Instead, she held my hand like that creepy boy from third grade picking up a dead cicada skin, only she was looking sideways at my ring. I couldn't get what she'd found so interesting. It was just a plain band that Edward had pulled off a dead chick a few missions back and squeezed until it fit me.

"_Which is that?_" she'd asked in Etrusca-speak.

"That is Bella, Athenodora," said Old Bitch One. "She has been serving us some two years."

"_How does she wear this?_"

Sulpicia had turned her head toward me and I'd swear she'd rolled her eyes.

"That is a wedding ring, Athenodora. It is the style such as married women wear."

"_Which did she marry?_"

"My lord husband says it is the same male whose scent you are always noticing."

"_Was she not in the garden with the tall one not ten days past? We saw them in the garden._"

"It is the same male, Athenodora."

"_The same? But he smelled shorter._"

"_Weaklings_ can be tall, Athenodora." Except it wasn't really "weakling." Some Etrusca-word that I couldn't really translate. It was somewhere between "short-blade soldier" and "slave." "Always the same male with this one," Sulpicia'd gone on. "And now she has married him."

Athenodora had turned to Sulpicia then. "_Why did he not ask? She is our servant._" Old Bitch One didn't have an answer for that one. Athenodora had looked at me strangely, as if I'd outsmarted her at something. Then she'd let go of my hand and gone back to staring out the window. A few minutes later she'd called for the ewer.

And she'd _never_ called me a slut _again_.

...which might be ironic at the moment. I kept my arms around his neck after we were done. I always liked to feel him then, glowing in my mind when our bodies were still close. I could never risk using my gift on Edward for very long. If Demetri or someone tried to find him, he'd know something was up. I didn't want to think about what would happen if I got caught.

"Did that clear your head?" I murmured in his ear.

I could feel him smile against my skin. "I believe it did, Mrs. Cullen."

"Shhhhhhhh..." I murmured, putting one finger across his lips. "You know he doesn't like it."

"And you know," Edward said, leaning back on his elbows, "that I don't care to dwell on Aro at moments like this."

At least I'd learned to stop rolling my eyes when he called me that. "My love" was fine. "Honey" was fine. But "Mrs. Cullen"? Yeech. It usually made me feel like some forty-odd soccer mom with a fanny pack. At times like this, though, I could manage not to feel too frumpy.

Sex was messier than I'd thought back in in the day—to think I'd even suggested doing it in the woods with no change of clothes at hand—but I was old hat at getting cleaned up in a hurry. We were both good at doing this in a hurry.

Later, I walked into the main audience chamber, ostensibly to give my thoughts on whether or not we should put Stephen out of his misery. Aro was staring at me, that penetrating, half-leering stare that had always made my skin crawl.

But Aro was on the back burner today. Nothing in the world could be creepier than what was laid out on that cloak.

Stephen hadn't been my brightest student. In fact, I wasn't surprised that he'd gotten himself killed. Except he hadn't gotten killed. His head might still be alive somewhere, and his arms and legs were alive here. The middle finger of his left hand flexed slightly, just like it always did before he went for the gut. I never had gotten him to stop telegraphing his moves. "They'll be dead before they can use what they know," he'd said. Poor, stupid man. I'd taught him to fight and think and obey and it looked like I'd done a shit job.

"What?" I asked, jerking my head around. "What, Master Aro?" I corrected myself.

"This situation is unprecedented, my dear Bella," Aro repeated himself in that voice that sounded kindly if you didn't know the sorts of things he could order right after using it. "I ask your opinion of the matter: What should be done with poor Stephen?"

Edward had told me what to say. The safest thing to say.

"His body is evidence, Masters."

Aro nodded, but I could see a tightening in his lower eyelids. Behind him, I saw Caius's lips tighten. I wondered if they actually do anything about what everyone said here. If it had been up to me, I'd have hung on to Stephen's bits even if we had to stuff them in a trophy cabinet and say they were a Halloween prop. What if we got his head back and didn't still have the rest of him?

"That must be hard for you to say, my dear," said Aro, casually laying a hand on my shoulder, as if any touch from him could be casual, "considering that he was your student."

I looked him in the eye and waited for him to get it over with. We'd been through this before. I was glad that my palms couldn't sweat. If I looked more nervous than every other time he'd tried to read me, he might think it was because I was the spy. Except that _did_ make me more nervous than every other time he'd tried to read me.

"That's kind of you, Master Aro," I answered. I couldn't wait for him to get his paws off me. And there it was, that same hard look on his face right before that fake smile came back. If trying to read my mind upset him so much, why didn't he just leave me alone?

"Thank you, Bella," said Caius. "You may go."

"Unless—" Aro turned around as I spoke. I should have just gotten the hell out of there, but it was too late now. Besides, what if he hadn't tried it?

I licked my lips. "Master, can you read him?"

Aro actually seemed to frown.

"Can you read Stephen's mind when you touch him?" I asked. "If he's still got thoughts, then..." Then what? "Maybe we could tell where he is."

Aro looked away and I'd wished Edward were there to tell me what he was thinking. "A limb is just a limb, little Bella," he said. "It has no thoughts on its own. It takes discipline and attention to hide something from me." And he turned his head to the side as if that could help him see my secret.

Edward was waiting for me right outside. "What's the tally?" I murmured. Around here, most collective decisions took place in the feasting hall, with everyone present at once (and Chelsea pulling strings double-time). I wondered if they'd actually act on it. The gossip mill was active enough for people to figure out what the majority opinion had really been.

He exhaled. "Most of the guard is very disturbed by this new ...tactic," he said. "But only a few people have admitted it."

"So Stephen goes crispy."

"Looks like."

I dropped my voice. "And the other thing?"

Edward gave me a chiding look. "What? I didn't say it."

"People can hear us, Bella, and they're not supposed to know there's another thing." He looked away. "But no, nothing on the other thing."

"You want to listen to their thoughts all night, don't you?" I asked sullenly.

"Advance warning would be good, Bella, yes," he told me in his I'm-trying-to-be-level tone.

I didn't sigh. Not too much. We stepped out of sight and waited. Inside the compound, the custom of giving mated pairs artificial privacy was so strong that a man and a woman in a shadowy corner usually got ignored, even if they were only holding hands. So long as he lay with his head in my lap, no one would realize that he was spying on their conversations with the masters. By now I could read his face so well that he hardly needed to speak. Hope—a new person walking in to speak to the masters. Focus—some curious thought that he'd tell me about later. Resignation—no new developments.

Could someone have been faking it? Not for the first time, I wondered just how deeply Edward had buried his memories of Alice. If Aro had touched him today for the first time, would she have been safe from him? Could the spy have buried his identity like Edward had buried his sister?

We were far enough from the audience chamber that not every vampire had to pass within sight to reach it. Still, I watched the parade of feet from the corner of my eye. The times favored practical shoes with wide treads and thick laces, even for women in skirts. Renata passed by us in her smoke-gray cloak. She didn't look at us. Heidi came by in dark stockings and a tight, stylish vest over a full knee-length skirt. I didn't look at her.

I let my own thoughts run, dredged up my old habits of looking at Volterra as a big walnut shell to be cracked open. Technically, using an ex-newborn as a spy would probably work. Edward had told me that Jasper's old master, Maria, had made him kill all their newborns once their strength was done. Caius had considered it, Edward said, but dismissed it as impractical. But we couldn't keep them all either. In the beginning, we'd just let them go out into the world on their own, but Aro had probably figured out that sooner or later some of them might feel a little miffed about being used up and thrown away. So Chelsea had been kept very busy, instilling in our newborns oodles of love for their gracious imperial benefactors. I was fine with it, really. Whatever kept her mind off Edward and her claws off Caroly.

Besides, Chelsea wasn't needed to ensure my girl's loyalty. The way she saw things, the Volturi had given her everything. The masters weren't entirely unappreciative of her efforts, especially not Aro. He could be that way, if you had a talent.

Edward's eyes went wide, and his breath left his body.

"What is it?" I asked, risking a break in his concentration. "Did they find the spy?"

Edward shook his head. "It's not that. I mean... it might be, but it isn't directly."

He looked square at me.

"Andrew has run away."

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Sorry for the long delay and scattery chapter, but forty-two was being difficult, and I wanted to get it hammered out before posting anything that might need to be changed later. Great quantities of angst can just flow, but a whodunit has to add up from beginning to end, and part III is going to be at least half whodunit.

drf24


	43. Ch 42 Fugitive

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

And darn you, Hurricane Sandy! But at least I got this chapter hammered out. I do plan on doing NaNo this year, so do not be alarmed at any delays in November.

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"Perhaps there was no sign, only millennia of practice," –Bella, _Breaking Dawn_

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"This was a poor idea," I murmured into the night breeze. "Andrew isn't our spy."

"The master never touched him after the mission," said Demetri. "There's no other way to tell for sure."

"He's run away for some other reason; I'm sure of that," I said. "We'd do more good staying in Italy until this matter is finished. We could always find Andrew later."

"We have our orders, Brother."

I nodded.

Demetri looked away, satisfied, then shook his head. "France," he said into the thickening air. "Why do they always try to get to France?"

"A better question would be why they think they can get away at all," murmured Caroly.

It was the three of us again. A team this small could move almost as fast as a vampire alone and still retain the numbers to overcome almost any coven we met along the way. This wasn't the first time that Demetri, Caroly and I had tracked someone across the Pyrenees. Tracker, spy and warrior. We were Aro's three furies.

Over the years, Demetri and I had mastered the art of using my gift in concert with his. The more I watched the image of our quarry grow in Demetri's mind, the sharper the voice sounded in my head. I'd be able to hear Andrew as soon as we got within a few miles of him. I also became more intuitive about his motives and actions, but it was possible that I was only imagining that part. We'd worked the kinks out of this system at almost the same time as Caroly had figured out how to translate the patterns in her head into plans. Her sense of her prey wasn't any more concrete than mine, but put the two of us together and we could almost predict the future.

Going out on missions like these, the three of us, was one of the few true pleasures of being Volturi. Everything fit together like they were pieces of myself. If I hadn't already known what it was like to be with Bella, I'd think there was no better thing in the world. The feeling should have seemed new to me, but somehow it wasn't.

_I wonder if Edward managed to get what he needed from Bella before we left the city,_ Demetri was musing to himself. _Probably. She usually takes care of him. We can't afford another Kiev_.

I gave half a laugh. "Never going to live that one down, am I?"

"I meant nothing by it, Brother."

"You have a right to your thoughts, Demetri," I answered.

_And you had a right to certain things,_ Demetri answered. Since figuring out how my gift worked, he'd occasionally indulged in half-unintentionally communicating opinions of the masters that he would not have voiced out loud. "There's only so much a man can endure before something goes amiss."

"There is a lady present, Demetri," I pointed out. Thinking about my sex life was one thing, but there was no need for more.

"Who, me?" asked Caroly, one hand on her hip and wicked smile on her lips. "Hate to break it to you, but Bella's told me everything. You have no secrets, Mister Edward."

"I guarantee, Caroly," I answered, matching her play-for-play, "Bella has _not_ told you _everything_," I said, tapping the side of my head.

"Speaking of which—" Caroly always changed the subject when she knew she couldn't win. "—any new information?" she asked, her face pale against the cityglow. Some of the streetlights were starting to come on, and we'd be able to move out soon. I closed my eyes, using the image-scent-essence from Demetri's mind to help me sift through the millions of sleeping and waking voices.

"Not yet," I murmured. "Let me look." Caroly grew quiet and let her mind go blank and still. Behind us Demetri moved through each memory he had of Andrew as if he were leafing through a dossier. Thick brown hair and thick arms; he'd blend in among the French working classes if he kept his mouth shut.

And then there was what Bella had told us before we'd left. Andrew had learned not to share his opinions, but he'd always been wondering what we did with the newborns after they were dismissed. We'd had perhaps fifteen calm newborns over the past twenty years, most in overlapping twos and threes. Our alumni did not return for visits and had never to date tripped the library radar.

"It might be a good thing if he were our spy," said Caroly in that half-apologetic tone that she used when she knew she was right. In her mind, I could see the patterns of loyalty that held our coven together. A newcomer like Andrew was out on the edges of the web. Losing him would do far less damage than if Heidi or Alec or even Marjane had gone rotten. I closed my eyes and pictured Andrew the way Caroly saw him, like a dull stone veined with loyalty like quartz veins in feldspar.

_There_...

"He's looking out the window," I murmured. "He's waiting for someone." A hazy image of a man's face swam in his mind. Andrew was not a very visual person.

_Contact_, Demetri concluded. A handler for a spy, perhaps someone interested in intel on the Volturi. But it could also have been a simple contact, someone who could provide forged identification chips, perhaps.

_We should go get him_, Caroly thought to herself. I looked at her sideways. Her eyes had gone a warm dark red. _He'll get hurt if we don't go get him first_.

"He's not one of us any more, Caroly," I murmured.

"I know. I'm just used to looking out for them." _He might have had a good reason for leaving_, she thought.

I grasped her by the upper arm. "Do. Not. Hesitate," I said.

"I know," she said.

"Believe it," I told her. "This is any other criminal. We're on any other mission." I wouldn't have Caroly injured out of pity for some dreg of a newborn who was almost certainly our traitor.

"How many people are coming to see him?" Demetri asked, cutting off any answer Caroly might have made.

It was always harder to nail down impressions than clear thoughts. "Perhaps just one, but I cannot be sure," I said. The words of Andrew's thoughts were peppered with nerves. This was someone important.

"We'll wait," Demetri said quietly. "We'll see whom he's come to meet, and then we'll apprehend them both."

I stayed silent as we moved from rooftop to rooftop. Andrew was waiting in a vacant apartment. The silence in the other floors told me that the building was under renovation, the work crews long since gone home for the night. I tried to piece together clues from the fragments of his verbal thoughts. I didn't like Demetri's plan. It required us to split up, for someone to take on an opponent alone, and our two targets were an unknown element and a trained newborn still in his strength. Knowing Demetri, he would volunteer to take Andrew on himself.

"I don't think it's a Romanian," I breathed as we got closer and the scraps of Andrew's thoughts became more clear.

Demetri looked at me. _Why not?_

I shook my head in our code for "not sure." Demetri turned back to the scene illuminated by the flickering streetlights. Ten years back, France had had to decommission some of its nuclear reactors. Even the capital had suffered rolling blackouts. Things must have improved if they could light this part of the city at night. At my right elbow, Caroly was taking in the layout of the streets below and making up a plan of attack. We'd done this so many times that she didn't need to read my mind to know where I would strike. We would be two jaws of the same trap.

But it turned out to be unnecessary.

"That's him," I breathed in surprise as I saw the figure approach, hands in its pockets against the chill.

_You're sure?_ Demetri thought firmly.

"That's him," I repeated. "He's thinking about the room number. In English."

_No one else is coming after?_ Demetri asked.

I looked back to the far wall, where Andrew was going over what to say to his guest. "Just him," I said.

"Change of plan," said Demetri. "You two remember Oslo. Do it."

Caroly was across the alley and on the fire escape before our visitor could take another step. She would enter the hallway and block exit through the door while Demetri and I came in through the unlocked window. It would be just like the hundreds of other times we'd ambushed one of our own kind. Nothing would be obviously broken. No evidence would be left behind. Only this time we only had until our new element made it into the building and up the stairs.

Crossing the gap to the other building was easy, but I could only open the window a few inches at a time without breaking it. Andrew had a full three seconds to realize what was happening. The low embers of his thoughts blazed up with indecision, and I had one of his thick arms pinned against the wall before he could recover. Demetri tossed a hood over his head, blinding him. Andrew thrashed as I dislocated his arms and legs, but it was halfhearted. He knew who'd come for him.

He went slack as Demetri and I dragged him out of the room, becoming dead weight. I couldn't help but smile. In many ways, it was easier to drag someone who was still struggling. Bella had taught him well before he'd gone deserter. Caroly brushed past us into the room, scrutinizing everything with an intense, practiced gaze. No evidence. No trace.

Three floors below us, Andrew's guest had opened the front door and found the staircase.

It was a risk, staying in the same building, but the empty apartment on the top floor was a better site than we'd be likely to find in five square blocks. Demetri and I dragged a gasping Andrew with Caroly close behind. She closed the door to the stairwell behind us, just as Andrew's guest opened it, five floors below.

"Don't call out," I ordered in a level tone.

_Oh shit_, Andrew thought clearly, practically shivering as Demetri jerked the hood off his head.

"Where are we?" Andrew asked, licking his lips as he saw Demetri and Caroly standing over him. He swallowed hard and tried to look braver than he was. "I've seen you guys at work," he said. "I know your tricks. We don't have to do this." _Am I the criminal now? Am I the enemy the minute I step away?_ Andrew suddenly looked very young. He'd spent only twenty-four years growing human bones and limbs and nerves and now his lack of experience was glowing out through his ember-bright eyes.

Demetri stepped forward slowly. In Andrew's mind, he looked like a demon gathering its tools, and he was the man who'd made the wrong bargain, hovering on the hook.

"You don't know all of our tricks," Demetri said.

It wasn't our smoothest interrogation. Green or not, Andrew was Volturi, and he could take some discomfort. At first, I detected no lies in his thoughts, telegraphing my findings to Demetri. The only way around this type of mental concealment was to depelete the subject's will, to wear him out and break him down until he could no longer think clearly enough to avoid the things he wished to hide from me. It wasn't about making him talk. It never was. It was about showing him who was in control of the situation. The more helpless he felt, the sooner he'd give in.

From my time with Carlisle, I knew the location of every nerve cluster in the human body. From my time in Volterra, I'd learned that a sharp steel stiletto could part a vampire's flesh.

"How long have you been working with our enemies," said Demetri.

"I'm not working with anyone," Andrew said between heavy, pained breaths. "I just wanted to leave. Look, there's no need for—" he cut off as I sank a third blade into what had been a brachial artery just eight months before. "—any of this," he finished. "Just ask me what you want. I have no secrets."

Caroly hovered behind him, out of sight. She was the perfect good cop, the disembodied voice with no face and no threat.

"Men with no secrets don't run," she said.

"I just..." he gasped. "I didn't want to end up like Stephen."

Demetri slapped him hard across the jaw. "Liar," said Caroly. "You're no coward."

_I am when it comes to having my head cut off and my heart burned._ Andrew's lower lip shook. I looked at Demetri and moved my eyes in our code for _True_.

Demetri was holding another of my knives, turning it over and over in his hand.

_I'll scream_, Andrew thought desperately.

I knocked him hard in the back of the head. "There's no one to hear you."

He thought of the man who'd come to meet him. I frowned. He was just some human, some human lured away to be his meal... I met Demetri's eyes and he nodded.

"Who came to see you tonight?" I growled.

"Nobody!" _Oh God, please let them leave him alone,_ he thought. I blinked hard. I had never known Andrew to harbor sentimental thoughts about humans.

"What is it?" Demetri asked me.

"The human who came to see him," I shook my head, "he wasn't for food."

Caroly blinked. "What then?"

Mentally, I searched out to the room we'd left. I could see Andrew's contact already inside, looking left and right, then stepping toward the empty window and looking down into the alley.

_Another joke_, the man in the apartment thought bitterly. _Break mum's heart again, will he?_

I looked intently at Demetri but there was no code for this. "It's his brother," I had to say out loud.

_I thought we screened them for human ties_, he thought.

"No, some still have them," I answered.

"It's true," answered Caroly. "You can't get fresh humans who don't still know _someone_."

I mentally leafted through the briefing that Bella had given me before we'd left, wishing that she'd come with us. Andrew had been estranged from his family in England. Something about a family business and a deal that had gone south. Andrew had left for Italy after taking the blame.

No... not family. Andrew had been estranged from his _parents_.

Andrew looked from Demetri to Caroly and back.

"I had a brother," he said. "A real brother. I didn't want to do this alone."

"Do what alone?" Demetri asked, but Caroly was already there.

"Andrew, you idiot," Caroly snapped. "You can't just turn him. You'd only kill him."

"No I wouldn't!"

Andrew had completed missions on four continents, and he thought he knew how to survive. He thought he could mentor a younger vampire. I leaned back in amazement. This boy hardly knew how to find food on his own.

_The sea's rising and I won't have it drown me. Or Henry either._

"Andrew, you can't turn someone else. You don't know what you're doing," Caroly said gently.

"I was going to do what Edward did to Teacher Bella," he said.

"Then you'd have killed him," I said harshly. "It was only fool's luck that my Bella lived through that bite."

"This is not how this world works, Andrew," Demetri's voice cut through us like a panther walking across a field full of cackling crows. Everything else went silent. "You live as yourself. Your brothers continue the mortal bloodline." _A father needs both._ I looked away. Demetri did not like to think about his mortal family. I knew he remembered them better than most vampires did.

"Why didn't you allow Master Aro to touch you, Andrew?" Demetri asked.

"I didn't want to be in the same room with Stephen's body."

I looked at Demetri and shook my head. _Lie_. Demetri nodded.

I pulled another needle-blade from my sleeve, making sure that Andrew could hear the sound. He pulled in half a breath to speak before I had three of his facial nerves laid open to the air..

"Next time it will be an eye," Demetri said calmly.

"I knew..." Andrew panted. "I knew the master would make me stay if I saw him. Like that time when Keiko wanted to leave. And I had to go."

I nodded. This seemed true. Keiko had entertained thoughts of leaving. I'd told Aro of this, and the next day, she'd had no memory of being more content in any other place. All the meaning had drained out of her old life. It had been one of Chelsea's neater jobs.

"How do you report to your contact?" Demetri asked coldly.

Andrew's remaining brow furrowed. "What?"

I took hold of his hand and snapped off a finger.

"Where do you feed the information you steal?"

"You think I'm the spy? I'm not!"

The words bubbled up in my head and I so wanted to keep them behind my teeth. But it was my duty. "Andrew, did you tell Henry why you wanted to meet him here?"

"No," he said, sounding confused at the change of subject. "I never told him about us or the masters or any of it. I just said I wanted to see him."

I met Demetri's eyes and raised my chin slightly. _Hit him_.

I'd thought I'd had a difficult time during my first few months in Volterra, but I was dearly lucky to have drawn Felix's attention rather than Demetri's. The next blow fractured Andrew's jaw. I asked my question again while the cracks crunched and knit, over Andrew's strangled whimper. His words were halting, but his thoughts were clear.

_Can you tell now?_ Demetri asked.

I nodded. "It's the truth. There was no evidence."

Realization dawned in Andrew's mind. "You weren't going to—"

"If you'd revealed the secret to a human, Andrew?" Demetri asked sharply. "Of course we would have killed him."

Caroly stepped into Andrew's field of view, "You know," she said, placing a hand on Demetri's shoulder, neatly trading her non-threatening position for some of the menace she'd picked up from Jane, "we still could."

Andrew swallowed hard. "What do you want?"

It was the same tactic that the masters had used on me. I couldn't say that it didn't work.

"You will tell us everything, Andrew," I answered

Andrew's lower lip shifted, just a suggestion of a quiver.

"I'm not working with anyone," he said, and something still seemed off about it. Not a _lie_, but certainly _off.._. "I've been meaning to come get Henry for months." This seemed. War was coming, a human war, and his brother was of military age. Andrew had grown up hearing about the Smythe who'd died in Iraq and the Smythes who'd died in Vietnam and the World Wars. The Union entanglement in China was looming like a prophecy, like a dragon to snatch Henry's life away.

In the back of Andrew's mind, I saw something flicker, like a pale trout through a dark stream. gestured to Demetri. _Follow this_.

"When did you first have this idea?" Demetri asked.

"I don't know. A while ago? Before Istanbul?"

A nomad had come to him in the countryside. A man. Tall and pale and heavily muscled. Just the sort that the Rumanians liked in their foot soldiers.

"Who was he, Andrew?" I asked. "Who said you should turn your human brother?"

Demetri didn't look up, didn't twitch, but his mind was alive with it. He always coiled in on himself like a snake when he knew I'd sighted our prey.

"The man, Andrew," I prompted. The images cropped up like mushrooms in Andrew's thoroughly ordinary mind. Tall and pale with wide shoulders. Powerfully built and unmistakably one of our kind. His shaggy hair and red eyes suggested an albino ox.

"When did you meet him?" I murmured in Andrew's ear.

"I didn't _meet_ him. I just..." Waiting out the day a few missions back. There was no crime in speaking to a nomad. We regularly allowed them to follow us as witnesses to the Volturi's justice. Or we had in more trusting times.

I let my head tilt back. Andrew's memories were scattered; he was trying not to think too hard about it, but there was a look in the stranger's eye that Andrew had entirely missed.

"What did he say to you?"

"We just _talked._ It was _nothing_."

They'd talked of the war. He'd asked about being Volturi, nothing dangerous, nothing that someone who wasn't expecting a trick would pick up on. Words about the masters. Words about newborns who aged out of the guard.

"Oh Andrew," I murmured under my breath as I watched this stranger plant doubts in Andrew's mind. Poor thing hadn't had a chance.

"And when exactly did you come up with this plan to come and turn your brother Henry?" I asked.

"Couple months ago," he answered.

"Before or after you met this nomad?" I asked.

Andrew got very quiet. It had been the same day. Damn it all.

"Was it the nomad's idea?" I asked.

Andrew shook his head. "No," he said. "In fact, he didn't say anything like that. Just that..." Andrew looked off to the side. "Oh..."

I closed my eyes. _Just that he was sure something bad would happen, and how he wouldn't let any little brother of his alone in a world like that._

"Andrew's stranger knew we were going to be attacked in Xian," I said out loud.

_What?_ Caroly asked.

"Huh?" asked Andrew.

"Maybe not Xian," I said, "but he knew someone would be attacked somewhere. He was priming Andrew to run whenever something big happened."

"No he wasn't!" Andrew snapped indignantly.

Demetri struck him across the mouth, almost absently this time. My mind was reeling. The newborn attack in Xi'an had involved an atrocity, a vampire kept alive without a body. If Andrew's contact had conditioned him to run away once something awful happened, and he'd known when that would occur... And to what purpose?

"It could be a cover," I breathed. "Someone wanted all eyes on Andrew, now."

"Because something is happening back in Volterra," Demetri finished.

"Or somewhere else important."

Whoever he was, he'd set a plan in motion at least two months in advance, and I had a funny feeling that Andrew was only one tiny part of it. Someone either had powerful supernatural powers or had known in advance that Andrew would be a suitable mark. Or they'd been working on other members of the guard as well.

This had the Romanians written all over it.

"How have you been feeding him information?" asked Demetri.

"I haven't."

I met Demetri's eyes. _True_, I projected.

_You're sure?_

I nodded. "Andrew is undisciplined," I murmured. "There is no way he could have kept something like that out of his thoughts week after week."

_Is that all he's got?_ Demetri asked.

"I can't be sure," I answered. "We need to take him back." Maybe Aro would find something I'd missed. That was the only way to prove that Andrew was innocent.

"No!" Andrew shouted. "No, they'll kill me!"

"Probably," I answered.

I hoped that Aro would find something that I'd missed, but it was beginning to look as if Andrew was not our culprit. The three of us began to prepare to leave. I gathered my knives. Demetri made a few ...modifications to Andrew's arms and legs, nothing that a human observer would notice, but enough to keep Andrew from moving at full speed, the vampire equivalent of leg irons. He was going back to Volterra, without a fuss ...or otherwise. It wasn't the first time we'd managed it.

Andrew was quiet now. It hadn't occurred to him until tonight that the man he'd met that day might have been up to anything untoward. He was going over the events in his head like a man checking Christmas lights for the one that went out. Andrew's ordinary thoughts passed through the front of his mind like yarn through the spinner's fingers, emotionally loaded words standing out like lumps in the line.

_"...China..."_

_"...brother..."_

_"...Bella..."_

A chill ran through me.

No, no, Andrew had to have mentioned her first. He'd said something about "Teacher Bella" and the other man had answered him. That had to be it.

Because if it wasn't, then our stranger knew Bella, or knew of her, and there was only one conclusion that the masters would draw.

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drf24


	44. Ch 43 Reputation

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

This author's note written right after I saw the fifth movie: (ahem) _What the hell?!_ I think it was a good decision, though. WTF moment #1 had me shouting at the screen involuntarily, rather than on purpose like usual, and what followed was so well presented that I could forgive them for WTF moment #2. Yes, that sort of thing is usually a copout, but it was the cleanest possible way for them to do some impressive and surprising things while still remaining reasonably true to the book. If I'd have changed anything, it would have been to keep more of the funny parts ...and to glue parts I and II together. Unlike HPVII, this wasn't really two movies with a clean in-story division in between. It was one long movie that got chopped up.

So I realized where some of these flashback patterns were coming from... Don't worry. If _Once upon a Time_ keeps doing what it's doing, I might stop watching it. No guarantees though. I made it all the way through the seventh season of _X-Files_. I've had this particular flashback ready for a while now, but I wasn't sure if I'd ever find a good place to fit it into the rest of the story.

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"If we can find enough friends to stand beside us. Maybe," –Edward, _Breaking Dawn_

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Aro was not pleased when we brought Andrew back alive.

"I am sorry I failed you, masters," I recited my lines with my right hand clasped on my knee as I addressed the masters before the gathered coven, my midnight-gray cloak spread around me like the wings of some terrible bird at rest. To my left, Caroly stood over Andrew where he lay, still sprawling from Jane's tender mercies. "I would have liked little better than to present you with a traitor's ashes."

Aro allowed one eyebrow to rise. _I suppose you would_, he thought, with an unsettling image of Bella appearing in his mind. I managed to keep my face still. Aro hadn't taken Andrew's thoughts yet, but what would he make of the strange nomad who had ruined the newborn and had Bella's name on his lips when he'd done it?

And his weren't the only thoughts I had to worry about.

_Coward. No one will follow the law if the Volturi run._

—_just not right, a man of the guard on his back like some kind of—_

_Should have sent me with Jane like in the old days._

—_killed him on the spot, like that runner in Caracas—_

_Must be the yellow-eye woman, then. She's a witch_.

So much of what we did was theater, even in our own keep. And I knew how to work a crowd.

"I did not find evidence of true guilt, my brothers and sisters," I said. "He may only have been deceived. Alone, I could not prove his innocence."

_Typical Edward, but we do need to be sure._

_Could've killed him anyway, filthy punk_.

_Give him to the master_.

_Only way to do it._

_The master will know, and then we'll put an end to him._

I allowed myself a breath as Bella's image ceased to appear in the flickering cloud of thoughts around me, superseded by images of Andrew yowling as he was torn apart. In this place, even approval felt like razor blades.

"My dear ones," Aro said, spreading his arms wide. "Truly this is a sad day for our family. To see one of our own brought to judgment. Never, never in three thousand years have I known a thing so wretched."

Andrew hauled himself halfway to a kneeling position. "Masters, I swear—"

Caius nodded quickly to Jane, and Andrew's remaining words were lost in a howl.

Aro gestured to me. "Rise, Edward," he said, placing a hand on my shoulder as I got to my feet. "You could have done nothing else."

_You must touch him yourself,_ I thought clearly before he broke contact. _The coven needs to see that you are not afraid._ And we needed to wring Andrew's memory for every dreg of information about the man who'd approached him in Turkey, for all that I was dreading the conclusions to which my masters might jump.

Marcus's grayed-over eyes moved to Andrew, who was still gasping at Caroly's feet. This was new, I heard him thinking as he rose up from his usual torpor. Aro had touched criminals before, but it was customary to break their arms and legs first, and that usually took place after a confession. In the field, Alec usually rendered them helpless before Aro got within ten feet. For the master to lay hands on a powerful newborn who might well be a traitor, that was different. The members of the guard were protective of the masters, but, as Demetri's doubts had proven, they had limits.

Aro looked at Demetri. It was so brief that the tracker didn't notice, but I did. The past nineteen years had not restored his seamless faith in Aro's genius. He did his duty, but he believed in the mission of the Volturi rather than the man who led it.

"Felix. Rolfe," he said, and the two men moved like hulking bears to take Andrew by each arm. I heard dozens of feet shuffle as the master approached the prisoner.

"I swear, Master," Andrew breathed as Felix and Rolfe hauled him upright. "I swear I'm no spy. I'd never betray this coven."

Aro put a hand on his shoulder, like a huntsman comforting a skittish hound, and I watched as a short lifetime of blazing experience flared from one mind to another. "I believe you, my boy," Aro said with a soft smile.

Half the vampires in the room exhaled, in relief or disappointment, and I was bombarded with their reactions as the whole room flexed like a hand around the throat that it could not wring. In Volterra, the master's word wasn't only law; it was proof.

I felt my breath sink in my lungs as I realized what Aro had in mind. I searched the faces in the room, but I couldn't see Bella. She had to be here. And she had to stay still as a statue through what happened next.

"My dear ones," said Aro, "the scraps of our ancient enemies, the Romanians, have not only managed to produce newborn soldiers of their own, but they have used them against us proactively and deliberately. Do you agree that the events of Xi'an constitute an act of war?"

"Yes, master," I murmured along with the entire guard.

At my elbow, I heard Andrew swallow hard as he put two and two together. Poor thing. It might have been better if he hadn't figured it out. It would have saved him some moments of fear.

"And do you believe," Aro continued, "that young Andrew deserted his post in this time of war?"

"Yes, master," replied the crowd. Caius rose from his throne, drawing his firestarter from his robes.

"But he was sorely afraid," Aro said, as if in sympathy. "Who would not be after seeing our poor Stephen? Surely this is an excuse for his incontinence."

"No, master," said we all.

"P-p—" Andrew stuttered, though only I could hear _Please_. He closed his eyes as Caius walked down the stone steps to where he knelt quivering in the center of the room. _You're going to die, Andy_, I heard him say to himself. _And you're only going to do it once, so don't spoil it with sniveling._ Of all things, I wondered who had ever called him Andy.

"It's all right," he said to Felix and Rolfe. "It's all right. Let me stand up." But neither of them moved an inch. "I'll take it like a proper man," said Andrew, some of his anguish seeping back into his voice. "Only let me up!"

_Going to burn!_

_Wish Heidi would move; I can't see_.

_Traitors die._

The firestarter cracked the air as Caius moved toward his servant-turned-victim. When Rolfe and Felix got clear, and there was a scream, _that_ scream. I knew better than to look away, but I didn't have to watch long. The scraps of Andrew's loyalty had bought him a quick end.

"Such a sad day," Aro said to us, shaking his head. "But our duty always calls."

_You are dismissed_, he thought clearly, thoughts turning back to Andrew's stranger like a finger worrying a dangling thread. _But we will talk later_.

I followed the crowd into the hallway and confirmed what I'd suspected: Bella had not been present for the execution. I was so preoccupied with wondering that I didn't notice when Caroly appeared at my elbow.

_Damn him_, she was thinking, only half to me. I took her by the arm and guided us both out of earshot.

"Andrew?" I asked when we were safe, inviting her to vent.

"He was doing _so_ well," she seethed. "He had an opportunity, and he didn't _take_ it." _He's wasted himself_.

"Not everyone's like you, Caroly," I told her. "From newborn to storm gray in five years? To missions with Demetri and Alec and Jane? Your rise was unusual."

She snorted. "Every newborn wants to become permanent. Andrew showed mettle in Xi'an, and he could have stayed on if he'd only..." she flared her fingers in the air the way Bella did when she was angry. _If he only hadn't run. Why are men such cowards, Edward?_

"Not all of us are," I pointed out, affecting an insulted air.

She shook her head. _But you and Demetri are different. You're..._ she didn't finish the thought. I knew what I was to her. I knew what Demetri was to both of us. Now, as I had some times before, I wondered why Caroly had never found a mate to her liking. Sometimes I'd see her look at a new face or hear an old name with something like hope, but it never lasted. If her standards were so high that the vampires of the guard couldn't meet them, then she probably never would choose anyone. It seemed sad.

"We probably shouldn't say any more," I murmured. Caroly nodded tightly. The knife's-edge etiquette of Volterra was usually second nature to Caroly. Except when she was around Bella or me. Two dreadful influences. Over the years, Caroly had even taken on some of Bella's accent, Arizona vowels and consonants sticking out of what had once been soft, Swiss-German speech, like spiky plants growing upward through the earth.

"Where do you think Bella is?" she asked. "And was it me or did things seem weird when we got back?"

I nodded. "Something happened while we were gone." Bella had been much on the minds of our covenmates. Ordinarily she wouldn't have been so present unless she'd actually been present.

I let my attention spread out through the compound. We had a newborn on the lower levels, but his thoughts were irritatingly focused a spider crawling across the edge of his cell. If Bella was with him, she wasn't on his mind. I drifted upward, trying to organize the images of the various men and women fanning out through the rest of the compound. Finally one hazy image coalesced into my wife's face.

"She's with Sulpicia," I said.

"During an execution?" Caroly asked, confused. Events like this were usually mandatory, and it wasn't as if the wives needed round-the-clock nursing.

"Want me to go up and check on her?" asked Caroly. "You could piggyback my signal," she said, tapping the side of her head.

I touched her shoulder gratefully. I knew how much she hated spending time in the tower. If she set foot in Athenodora's sight, she'd probably be made to stay for hours.

"That's all right, Caroly," I said. "But I'll handle this one. You try to find out what we missed. Rolfe has probably been itching to tell us something."

"Edward, you know you're not allowed up there."

"I'm not going to the tower," I said, smiling. Bella had not told her everything.

It was like clockwork. I waited in the roof garden until one of the wives noticed I was there. Then Sulpicia sent Bella downstairs to tell me not to damage the rhododendrons. Considering that there had not been any rhododendrons in the garden since the late 1930s, this was easy to do. The first time it had happened had been several months after our wedding. I had entirely unintentionally prevented her from returning to her duties in favor of vigorous marital relations behind the roof access. The wives hadn't noticed. They hadn't noticed the second time either. There were worse anniversary traditions to have.

Eight minutes after closing the roof access, I heard soft footsteps behind me. I turned to see Bella with her face like a mask.

"Did they kill him?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered.

Bella closed her eyes. "Was he the spy?" she asked.

"No, but I think he may have seen something." I quickly related what little I'd learned about Andrew's stranger, but my lips stopped moving when I came to the part where Andrew thought he had said her name.

"Weird," Bella said thoughtfully. "Are you sure he did in on purpose? The man who talked to Andrew." Her face was smooth. She seemed a little worried, but nothing out of proportion with the atmosphere in the compound. I actually felt a little relieved. She'd never seen Andrew's stranger. I'd been wrong.

"Edward?" Bella prompted, and I realized that I'd never answered her.

"No," I said quickly, "no I'm not sure. I guess it could have been just some nomad but it all fits too neatly."

"This is a first," she said. "One of the Volturi a criminal."

"It's not a first," I answered. "But it's the first calm newborn, yes."

I looked her in the eye and I wondered. She'd been their teacher, every last one of them. It would be just like the guard to forget her dozens of loyal, brave pupils and blame her for producing one traitorous coward. Technically two, but everyone had forgotten Stephen by now.

"Master Marcus told me to mind the wives during Andrew's hearing," she said. I smiled. It was good to hear about Marcus interacting with anything in the world. Even after all this time, we were still something like favorites with him. The smooth bond that had developed between the pair of us soothed him. Sometimes he pictured it as a thick green vine, full of quiet life. Sometimes he saw it as a cloud of powdery red dust. I supposed we were something like a favorite television show, and he didn't want his other servants to cancel the female lead.

"What happened while we were gone?" I asked.

Bella breathed out cautiously. "Caius wanted ...replacements. From the staff."

My mind cleared. "Whom did he select?"

Her throat flexed. "He wanted me to pick them out."

"And what did you do?" I asked cautiously. My Bella had never been as tender-hearted as I'd once thought her to be, not even when she was human. That had been my own fantasy. She didn't see turning a human as killing him or her. She had a problem with sending her pupils to their first feasts, but there was nothing we could do about that.

"I tried to be objective. I asked whether he wanted grunts or specialists. And he asked if I kept my own files on them. I said no but that I'd talked to you about the interviews."

Vetting new employees was one of my duties. I sat in the back of the room while Felix asked the questions, and I raked their brains for the answers. In addition to security risks and general job skills— Volterra was not the place to pad one's résumé —I flagged the humans who were most likely to possess supernatural talents, mostly by checking for exaggerated personality traits. Carlisle had once speculated that I'd had an unusual sense of people as a human, but he'd have had no way of confirming this. Bella, though... I'd often wondered if her gift was why she hadn't been afraid of me, even when she'd been human. Deep down, she'd always known she was protected. So far, only one of my selections had turned out to have a gift—Marjane, with her intuitive sense of electrical objects.

I'd talked with Bella about every single human. Objectively, she'd have to teach the ones who were selected for "novitiate," as Caius called it, but that had just been a cover. I'd needed to get the information out of me. Those poor people.

"Caius said that he'd asked my opinion," Bella continued. I could picture it now, Caius's craggy face tilted to the side with something halfway to a leer. "I told him that since Andrew and Stephen had both been foot soldiers, we should turn Dobson and Vasili—you know, those two tall ones. Then he said 'No, I think Ichiro and Doreen.'" One accountant whose thoughts had reminded me of Charlie Swan's and an ex-police inspector with a record of locating caches of contraband that seemed too good to be entirely natural. Specialists.

It clicked in my head. "This wasn't a private summons, was it?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Caius gave me my orders in front of half the coven."

And the other half had known by the end of the day—Caius had staged the whole thing, a little scene demonstrating to the coven that he thought she couldn't be trusted.

So now they thought so too.

I ran my hand down the side of her arm. She caught my fingers and held them against her. "They're setting you up, my love," I said quietly.

She licked her lips and answered, "I know." But Marcus didn't want her dead; he'd protected her. If either Caius or Aro truly made up his mind, though, that would stop.

"Look, this is going to sound strange," I said carefully. She looked up, two eyes like cracked stone meeting mine. "But I need to hear you say something."

I thought I saw a shadow cross her face as I explained what I'd seen in Andrew's mind, what he'd heard, but she was shaking her head before I even finished the story.

"No," she said, "no, Andrew must have remembered it wrong."

"We can't remember things wrong, Bella."

She shook her head, "Yes we can."

"Bella, don't be silly."

"Andrew got it wrong," she said, stepping back. One fingernail found her teeth as she searched the empty walls. "I don't know this man," she said, turning back to me. "I mean, I've met a lot of blonde vampires over the years, but I don't know specifically who you're talking about. If it wasn't Carlos or Sven—" she said, naming two newborns who'd left us. "Or Jasper?"

"It wasn't," I told her. "It was no one I recognized."

"Someone who saw me in the field once?" she asked.

She was right. There were a million rational explanations. But then why did she look so nervous. She stopped pacing and sat down on the windowsill, shaking her head. "So what is it that you need to hear me say?" she asked.

I sat down beside her and took her hand. "That you had nothing to do with this," I said, and her lower lip moved, just barely. "You say it and that's the truth," I said. I had to know what I was looking for. A real spy or ...or some way to earn her clemency. "You say it and for me that's proof."

"I had nothing to do with Andrew leaving or the spy or any of it. I didn't want him to leave and I would have told him not to if he'd brought it up," she said without hesitation. I didn't see any lies in her face, only fear. Relief washed through me like a soft rain. "But that won't matter to Caius, will it?"

I placed a finger over her lips. She closed her eyes. She'd been so good about keeping treasonous thoughts inside. This was a meaningless ejaculation. Wordlessly, I pulled her against me, tucking my chin over her shoulder as I curved into the shape of the alcove.

She lifted my left hand to her face and kissed my fingers. We stayed like that, not moving, not thinking until I could hear Sulpicia wondering where she was.

I promised to meet her as soon as I could. I told her that I would have a plan by then. I lied.

It was a terrible thing to be without the protection of the coven. Bella and I had learned that early. The masters had inflicted a long penance on Bella and me in the weeks following our wedding. Even in the middle of it, I'd had to admire their sense of symmetry. They let the punishment fit the crime in every respect.

Even the memory of the frustration I'd felt in those days was like a blade under my ribs. I had waited years to be with Bella. Two years since our first meeting in Forks, but it had really been longer than that. I'd been waiting since before the world formed out of dust. And when we got back to Volterra and we were finally _married_... God but it wasn't fair. I'd been so good. I'd found her. I'd guided her through her turning, I'd kept my hands to myself during her human _and_ newborn days, and I'd married her. Now I wanted what I'd waited for.

The hardest moments are the ones right before the end, and I never knew when the end would come. Those weeks at Aro's side had been beyond difficult.

_You knew perfectly well that I would not approve._ Aro could make his thoughts very strong. It was like being shoved.

_Yes, Master Aro._

_We do not encourage the retention of human customs that are irrelevant to our condition,_ was his topmost thought, but there were other ideas underneath. His true motives rippled under the surface like snakes beneath the water. He did not like that I imitated Carlisle and that the thought of my father's approval was always high in my mind. And then there was Bella. Aro was not nearly so free from human values as he wished. Deep down, he liked the idea that Sulpicia was purer and better than the other women here, even if it was only that they didn't qualify for some outdated human concept of womanly honor and she did.

I was gladder than ever that I'd gone through with it.

_Salome is reading about a movement to reform the hukuo system, Master._ The Chinese household registry was a matter of interest to him. At that time, its inability to accommodate workers from rural areas who moved to cities for work had created an urban underclass, almost like illegal immigrants within their own country. It fascinated him terribly and, years later, played a role in the western uprising.

_Don't try to distract me. You did very wrong, Edward._

No I hadn't, and he couldn't change my mind.

_You will find that I can._

_Perhaps, Master_, I'd admitted. After all, even stone could warp under pressure, given enough time. He'd done an excellent job of making each minute seem like an eternity.

It was three weeks before Bella and I were free at the same time. I was waiting at the base of the tower just as her shift with the wives was ending. She saw me and her eyes lit up. I couldn't help but be affected. She wanted this as much as I did, and the proof of it went straight to my head. I practically lifted her off her feet. I opened my mouth to ask her if the time was right and she kissed me before I could make a sound.

"I mean to keep our bargain, love," I'd murmured.

"You'd better," she'd said, and two words were more beautiful then ten sonnets by Donne.

The practice tunnel was damp and dirty, but it was as close to private as we were likely to get. After all these months, it wasn't hard to convince myself that the narrow, dusty space made me feel safe. All the other thoughts were high above us. Down here it was just her and me. This wasn't about Volterra; it was about us.

There was no feeling like it. _Knowing_ that this wasn't like any of the other moments we'd stolen together, that my hands, then only on her waist, would soon touch her however I wished, that she'd leave here as a woman who'd given herself to me. I considered myself a gentleman, but I was still a man.

I tried to measure my breathing, keep things moving slowly. I didn't want to lose my head. I had plans. We weren't two teenagers coupling furtively in the back seat of a car; we were man and wife, and I was going to make this wonderful. I was going to draw on everything I'd ever overheard or read or seen in people's thoughts and make her so glad she was with me.

She broke our kiss long enough to unbutton my shirt. I knocked my cloak off my shoulders, making sure it fell open when it hit the floor behind us, and shrugged out of my sleeves. I practically shivered when I felt the cloth of her dress against my bare skin.

"Does it—"

"It unzips in the back," she breathed against my ear.

I planted a kiss on the side of her neck and reached behind her, feeling every vertebra beneath my hands as I slowly let the garment fall free. She stepped back, holding me at arms' length as she slipped it off her shoulders and let the cloth puddle by her feet. First the dress, then the cloak. Her skin seemed hypnotically vibrant, like new snow against the rich color of a matching bra and underwear set, embroidered at the edges and far more delicate than most women in the guard bothered with.

"Dark blue..." I murmured, just barely brushing one finger against the satin.

"I remembered that's your favorite," she said, eyes closing with a hint of a shudder.

"Did you wear that for today?" I asked, confused.

"Every day," she whispered, "just in case."

When had I gotten so lucky? "I love you."

"Then come here."

I took her in my arms and slowly ran my hands over her skin, loving the feel, loving the curve of her lips as they fell open, loving the weight of her hands and the feel of her eyes on me. It was new and strange, but I reminded myself that she could touch me in any way she liked; I was hers by every human and natural law. She smiled perfectly, and I knew she was thinking about that day in the woods even before she tucked a finger inside my belt. I felt my breath catch, but I didn't flinch ...not away, at least.

_In good time_, I thought firmly, and just imagining the moment itself was enough to drive me mad. First, I was going to make her feel like the most adored creature who'd ever existed. I'd kiss every inch of that beautiful skin and then I'd guide her down onto the cloak and—

"What is it?" she asked when I pulled away. "Edward, what's wrong?"

"He's ...calling," I told her.

"Fuck Aro. Don't go."

"Bella, I _have_ to go."

"No, you _have_ to stay here and—" she clamped her mouth shut, breath hissing out through her nose. "No, I get it. You gotta go." She leaned down and snatched her dress up off the floor like a woman grabbing an alley cat by the scruff of its neck.

"Bella, I'm—"

"_Just go_."

He was in the library, and he knew.

"Did I send for you at an inconvenient time, young Edward?" he asked graciously. One or two people looked up from their workstations.

"Of course not, Master," I answered, as I'd been meant to, and the others heard me, as they'd been meant to. We couldn't have the guard thinking that their beloved master would do something so petty as meddle in a mated couple's sex life.

_I cannot have people disobeying me, Edward._

_There was no order to disobey._ I felt a surge of ingratitude. I'd left my wife and come when he'd called, hadn't I? It ought to have been impossible for anyone to want more.

_We do not deal in technicalities in Volterra,_ Aro thought strictly, _or in exuses. We are not some human legal system to succumb to loopholes. You knew I would disapprove of your human ceremony, and you performed it anyway. I do not punish you for your rebellious thoughts, but do not expect the same for your actions._

If it hadn't been a mental conversation, I'd have been able to keep from saying it, from admitting that he'd found a way to get to me. _For how long?_

The response was as smug as the smile that hid it. _For as long as I please_.

He'd kept me by him for another ten days.

The second time, I hadn't waited just outside the door where anyone could mention my whereabouts to the masters. I'd all but hid in an alcove near the art gallery, inconspicuous, invisible. When her shift ended I caught her eye and all but grabbed her. We were both off running. I hauled the cover off the entrance to the practice tunnel just in time to hear the sounds of Renata and Adal training below.

"This way," she'd whispered harshly, and a minute later we'd found ourselves in the utility closet on the third floor. Not what I'd hoped for for the consummation of our marriage, but we weren't the first couple to use this place, and _everyone_ knew what a bolted door meant.

I wanted to take my time, but I knew I couldn't risk it. I let her shove my cloak off me, heard it flop down on top of an empty wash bucket. The metal rail shelves clunked as her shoulders fell against them. I kissed her neck before undoing the top buttons of her blouse. I caught a hint of blue and smiled against her skin. A little scuffed, but still hopeful, every day. Still my girl.

I was in such a rush that the last button flew off and zinged me in the eye. I saw her clamp down a giggle.

"You think this is funny, do you?" I asked quickly.

She nodded. "Why don't you make me laugh some more?" she suggested, leaning forward to show her skin against the blue.

Two could play at that game. "Oh I don't think you'll be _laughing_," I answered, fitting my hands against her hips and pulling her toward me. She reached up and let me taste the smile on her lips. No, she didn't think this was funny that we were hiding up here like mice scrounging for leftover minutes as we knocked cleanser off the shelves.

Then she slipped her hands under my shirt and I didn't give a _damn_ where we were. It might as well have been the island where Esme and Carlisle spent their anniversaries. So what if it had to be a little quick? It wasn't as if we'd only get to do it once.

I put my arms around her and lifted her off her feet, and the feeling of her against me was like nothing in the world. My Bella.

And then...

Bella's arms went stiff as I stopped moving and gently set her down.

"No," she said, voice thick with disbelief.

"Bella, it's not as if I _want_ him to—"

The growl building like a storm in the back of her throat was at once the most enticing and the most terrifying thing I'd ever heard. Her hands clenched and there was a squeal of abused metal and a thick, crunching sound of high-grade plastic as grayish liquid spattered the floor.

"Bella, the bleach!"

"_Screw the fucking bleach!_" she snarled like a dragon.

I felt a little wronged. It wasn't as if _I_ didn't want to destroy anything right now. My master's craggy neck, for instance.

"You've ruined your skirt," I said quietly.

"Screw my skirt," she snapped, shaking bleach off her fingers. "Edward, if he keeps this up, I swear I'll—" She cut herself off. She seethed like a hot sidewalk in a sudden rain. "It's not your fault," she clipped. "We'll— I don't know what we'll do, but— You'd better go. I'll... I'll just clean this up."

I left the closet and breathed air that didn't smell of chlorine or of her. I checked my clothes from the top down, straightening where I could. I wouldn't look as if I'd just had my trousers pressed, but I'd be presentable. I heard the footsteps before I heard the thoughts.

"Good clean fun on the third floor?" Rolfe asked merrily with what under other circumstances I might have called a good-natured leer. "Spent some time there myself. Why I could tell you—"

"For the love of all that's holy, Rolfe. _Shut. Up._"

His face transformed and he blinked heavily. _What was that for? Oh hell, he did something prissy and she threw him out on his ass._

"I didn't—" I snapped. I took a deep breath. Aro wouldn't want me to say that he'd called me just to interrupt my attempts to fulfill my long-delayed husbandly duties. That would cause him to lose face in front of the guard, and then he would actually be right to punish me. "I'm sorry Rolfe," I said in my most mannerly tone. "I misspoke. Perhaps I'll see you later."

_What the hell?_ Rolfe wondered._ That's the biggest twist I've seen anyone get into since Felix thought he was allergic to Heidi's hairspray._

I'd managed to regain most of my composure by the time I stalked into the library, but Aro saw everything the moment his hand hit my skin. He felt as clammy as a frog and as inexorable as a steel collar. His thoughts were like sandpaper against my mind. I threw myself into the work as hard as I could. Heidi was reading about economic conditions in Germany. Richard was on a fascinating piece about tissue regeneration. I absorbed it all, looking for any common thread. I imagined I was a cloud, a spirit with no body, just looking for information. It seemed to help.

Three hours later, there was a shift change. She walked in behind Salome. She'd managed to replace her skirt and sew the button back on her blouse, but there was just the tiniest hint of a tear near the edge of her sleeve. I remembered how she'd gotten it.

_Enthusiastic, isn't she?_

My thoughts snapped into a wordless hiss. It was all I could do to keep my body still and silent.

_Come now, Edward. I always know everything sooner or later. It's nothing I haven't seen before._

I tried to immerse myself in the news bubbling up from the minds in front of me, but her scent, always pleasant to me, pulled me back into my skin like a dog's choke chain. I tried to banish the images in my head, but new ones took their place. It was like fighting mist, and I didn't want to win.

_Oh go, Edward,_ Aro told me with a mental roll of his eyes. _You're no use to me like this_.

I stepped away from the master with the usual air of respect, even if it was a bit more forced than usual. On my way to the door, I moved to kiss Bella on the cheek or touch her arm or perform some gesture appropriate for a man of the coven and his mate, but her skin was like an electric shock against mine. Her eyes looked the way I felt. _Soon_, I wanted to promise, but I had no power to keep it.

The next day, Aro sent me to Kiev with Rolfe and Demetri. Things ...did not go well. Or they went too well, depending. The nomads we'd been sent to frighten wouldn't be skirting the law any more. They wouldn't be doing anything else either. Demetri had been furious. He hadn't struck me since my hazing, but he did that night. I remembered Rolfe's eyes on me, his thoughts wordless but solid, like the heavy steps of a bear walking toward some distant but familiar destination. On the way home, he pulled Demetri aside for a talk. I could barely focus on their conversation; I still had so much ...not anger but the two feelings were so like that it scarcely mattered.

In time it would burn down, I'd told myself. In time, I'd be able to carry my frustration. But what then? Deep down, I knew that Aro had to grow tired of toying with me eventually. Or Marcus would forgive me and speak to Aro. But this was Volterra. Time wasn't time here, not like in the real world.

The dates of the Kiev mission meant we would miss the feast back in the compound, so Rolfe and Demetri went for a discreet hunt in a suburb while I headed toward the scrubland nearby. No elk. No mountain lions. A few feral dogs, though. I didn't bother with my usual trick of breaking their necks, and I came back with my clothes a mess.

Aro saw everything in my memories when I made my report.

_You should do your duty with more delicacy, Edward. Those men may have had information that we could have used._

I managed not to glare at him. I thought about it, and I made myself remember that even if I were frustrated beyond the endurance of any man, those nomads had not been the cause of it, and I managed not to glare. Out loud.

_Do you understand now, Edward?_ he asked me.

_No._

_Nothing here is yours. Not little Bella. Not your devotion. Not yourself._ There was something that had been mine, something that he'd have let me keep, but I'd thrown it away._ You can make no vow of any kind. When you speak a promise, you do not give your word. You give mine._

I didn't answer. There was no answer.

He regarded me coldly. _I could have you made a cuckold. If I wished._

_She wouldn't do it,_ I answered without hesitation.

_I could order her._

_She still wouldn't do it_, I answered. But if Aro threatened me or even one of her students... _Don't make me hate you, Aro,_ I'd told him. _I don't yet. I truly should but I don't._

_You'll forgive me once it's over, Edward._ The weight of his mind on eighty years of memories made me remember what it was like to need air._ It's in your nature. You forgive anyone but yourself._

_Or anyone who harms her_, I'd added.

_Then why is this boy Tyler not a sweet memory of blood between your teeth?_ he'd asked.

_Because he did not mean it. James is ash._

The weeks passed, and there were shadows under Bella's eyes that I couldn't believe were thirst. She stopped looking hopeful when she saw me. I knew it was my place to put it right and that I could not.

Things in Volterra tended to get tense in the days before a feast. There were more fights and more accidents of all kinds. If a feast was delayed, the wisest of the human staff called in sick. Members of the guard would see Bella and Jane and me, flush and sated with full-yellow eyes while theirs stayed black and hungry. Among pack animals, ranking beasts always ate first. My covenmates knew that something was backwards, and they responded with hostility.

Most of it happened before I got there. I'd only heard about it later, from Bella and Rolfe and the scoundrel's thoughts.

He'd have swaggered into the hallway near where Bella was guarding one of the newborns in the cell. I knew by the timing it must have been Philip but I always pictured Adal. He'd thrown the flower at her feet and it had hit the ground with a rustling smack, leaking perfume like yolk out of a broken eggshell.

Renata had been called away. He'd waited for Bella to be alone. I'd checked.

_"It isn't spring,_" he'd said. "_I waited extra long."_

_"That's one of Sulpicia's camellias, Byron,"_ she'd answered. _"Get out of here before she asks someone to take it out of your hide."_

_"Come on. I heard your mate can't get it up. You must be lonely."_

_"Get lost!"_

Philip had started screaming when the fight began, but that wasn't unusual. Most people tended to ignore the noise from a newborn's cell. Rolfe was the only one who'd thought something was off.

I'd been in the library with Aro when I'd noticed the turmoil in Phillip's mind—Aro liked to keep an eye on Caius's project. I didn't leave him time to object. I'd pushed his arm off my shoulder and hit the door running.

Bella was a good fighter, but Byron was half again her size and had more experience. When Rolfe got there, Byron had a new bite mark on his left bicep and Bella in a necklock against the far wall. By the time I arrived not thirty seconds later, Rolfe had yanked him off her by one arm. Byron was pivoting to punch him in the temple but I cracked the bone of his free arm and helped Rolfe wrestle him to the ground. He was flat on his back with Rolfe's knee jammed in his solar plexus before he could draw a breath. I spared him half a snarl before going to Bella.

"Are you all right?" I'd murmured, just barely touching the side of her face.

"Yes," she'd said, pressing my palm against her cheek.

I nodded tightly, and then I rounded on him. "Did the master tell you to?" I'd hissed, forgetting that Rolfe was there.

Rolfe's head had snapped up. "What's that?"

The whole room seemed to flash and suddenly I'd been close enough to see the my reflection in Byron's demon-black eyes. "_Did the master tell you to?_"

"No!" Byron shouted. I dug into his thoughts as if I had claws, wishing beyond anything that I were Chelsea and could tear him apart, dig him up like the roots of a tree. His mind was tripping over itself with things he'd buried in swagger and never confessed to out loud. _I swear I only meant to show her would have liked it if she'd let me wouldn't really oh God he can hear me oh God oh God._ But I did not see my master there.

I looked up to see Bella stalking toward us, face like a statue of Juno in a rage. Behind her, the door to the hallway moved. Richard and Salome had heard the noise and come to see what had happened. I could hear more curious thoughts approaching, but most were more interested in Heidi and the feast. We had would have quite an audience in a moment. I forced myself to become calm, or at least appear so.

"I seem to recall that we talked about this, Byron," I said quietly.

_What happened here?_ Richard was wondering. Salome's eyes narrowed and I saw her lips curl in anticipation.

_He's out of his mind_, thought Byron, and he twitched to the side, pressing the side of his head against the stones of the floor. It wasn't going to be his ear this time, but it wasn't up to me. "It wasn't like that!" Byron burst out as Bella knelt down next to me like the first distant clashes of a thunderstorm. "I barely laid a hand on her and she jumps me like I'm some kind of—" I hit him hard in the mouth with the side of my fist. He was telling the truth. He'd only touched her shoulder. But he'd _meant_ to touch more. I suddenly craved Aro's insight. I needed to know how far Byron would have taken this. Because if he was only a scoundrel, then we could both live in Volterra. If he was only a scoundrel, then I could pass by him in the hallways and be content to think of him with contempt. If he was the other sort, then by God, I would kill him one day, and then they would kill me.

"I can do it for you, if you'd rather not touch him," I'd said.

"Or I can," Salome added darkly. From the corner of my eye, I'd noted two more faces join the small, growing crowd, just as eager to see some fun, I supposed. I turned away.

I saw Bella's throat flex, but her face was dark and steady. "There's a feast today," she'd said. "Hold him still."

Philip didn't scream this time. Perhaps it was the quiet presence of so many other spectators, who never let their voices rise above a hiss. He just watched. Byron was another matter, twisting uselessly as Bella went to work. And God forgive me, but I was cruel, speaking soothing words, as if Byron were a tiny child with a wound to be stitched. Our gathering spectators drank it in like an Oscar-winning film, too tense and hungry to show him any sympathy. I wallowed in his helplessness like a pig in filth.

_Like a little earthworm on the pavement._

_Filthy wretch._

_A man has rights,_ thought Felix. I resisted the urge to look up. _Even a scrawny excuse for a man._ To his mind, I might be a bit strange for letting Bella mete out the punishment, but it was one that Byron's deserved—for being defeated. Like Byron, he assumed that Bella would have enjoyed Byron's attentions if he'd gotten a little further along. I held in a snarl. Felix happened to like his women flirtatious and inviting, or else he'd have learned that he was wrong.

We let Byron up just as the compound began to murmur with the sound of Heidi returning. He had to choose between trying to fight us and leaving with his "property" still in our possesion. He chose the latter, leaving with Richard and the rest with his thoughts seething with hatred and humiliation. He considered telling the masters that he'd been attacked, that Bella was a mad slut, a frigid bitch who'd overreacted to nothing. After all, only Rolfe had seen otherwise, and Aro might not look into the matter personally.

Bella thanked Rolfe and then I did. Rolfe answered with some joke about how Bella would have had him on the ropes in a minute. God bless him. But his thoughts were far less oafish. _What was that about the master sending him?_ he'd asked.

"Nothing." I told him. "I was just raving." Rolfe looked at me with narrowed eyes but didn't ask again. _Something stinks about all this,_ I heard. _You're lucky I'm hungry._ Bella and I scarcely had time to hole up in the upper library when the feast started. I'd closed and covered the vents that morning, but something always snuck in.

God, but my veins had felt alive with it all. I was so angry. I was _so_ angry... I shouldn't have spoken to him calmly when he deserved nothing but curses and shouts. I should have made him shamble upstairs like a gangrel beast on broken limbs. I should have taken his eyes. I should have killed him.

"I wasn't stronger than he was," Bella muttered to me from where she stood where the floor met the wall. "If I'd been on my own, I couldn't have stopped him."

"Neither am I. It doesn't matter," I said tersely, trying to block out the blur of violent, hungry, terrified thoughts that were bubbling up like lava from the first floor. The humans below us weren't strong enough to defend themselves either. The faint scent of blood wasn't helping. It didn't matter because she could train harder, become better at fighting and dodging and slipping another vampire's hold.

Down in the feasting hall, the strongest and most vocal humans—the fighters—were being picked off. Demetri had noticed Byron's alteration, but everyone else was busy.

I saw Bella run a hand through her hair, and her middle finger shook. I wondered how much of her calm had been an act. "Will..." Bella's voice was like a chipped stone. I looked up to see her lower lip trembling. "Will they punish us?"

And that was it. _That_ was when I lost my head. At Byron. At Aro. At myself. At her. If she'd been human, I'd have called it an adrenaline crash. If she'd been human, I'd have crushed both her arms with the way I pulled her toward me just as Felix plunged his teeth into a large, terrified man who thought in Serbian.

"This was _not_ your fault," I hissed, my forehead barely an inch from hers as Felix's human shuddered and died. If I said it hard enough, maybe the masters would believe it.

"But he only—"

"Shut up," I'd said, before stopping her mouth with mine as if it were life itself. I couldn't bear to hear excuses any more than the slashing thoughts thrumming at us through the stone. A man didn't have to be a serial rapist to deserve a beating. If I'd been thinking clearly, I'd have told her that she'd done nothing wrong, that I was proud of her for fighting well, that I was ashamed of myself for not having utterly, utterly torn him apart. But I wasn't thinking clearly. I hadn't been for weeks.

She should have slapped me. I deserved it. I deserved so much. But her fingers found my arms and squeezed until my skin cracked and she kissed me back with all the doomed madness of the screaming voices in my head.

It was all wrong. Not after what had just happened. Not with my heart full of anger and my mind full of blood. I told myself, in my tiny, far-off conscious voice, that Bella wouldn't want to trade one conqueror for another, that I should wait.

I didn't listen.

I had her shoulder blades pressed against the wall before I knew we'd moved. I left her lips and moved on to her neck as the hem of my cloak swayed with the motion and her soft gasp rippled across my skin like a shiver. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I'd had plans, but I couldn't even remember. It was as if my memories of other people's experiences weren't even the same kind of thing as what I wanted from her. Of course they weren't. Nothing in the world was the same kind of creature that she was.

I felt the light growl in my throat, natural as the world, smooth as her fingers on the back of my neck. I knew where I wanted her hands, so I reached out and put one there. Her breath caught a little as she felt it. Her fingers moved, but it wasn't quite right.

"Harder," I whispered against her temple. My own breath fairly stopped when she did as I'd said.

I didn't notice exactly when we'd gotten to the floor, half her cloak bunched up underneath us. I growled, letting the sound go through my chest, her chest, her hips, her heart. I watched breathlessly as she tossed her head back, stretching out her throat. I kissed it. She'd given me her throat, so I kissed it. Then I caught her trachea between my teeth and felt her go still underneath me. I growled again from deep inside me, every vibration saying that I was bigger than she was and older and more ruthless and that she'd better do as I wished. But when it was her hands that reached for my belt, I didn't mind. It was better. It was so much better when she was the one to set me free. Awkwardly, I hiked her skirt up above her waist in hasty, unbalanced pleats. She shifted underneath me, but never enough to affect my grip and score her skin.

I had to let go to take off my shirt. I didn't want it between us. I didn't want anything between us. I put my hands back to her hips and split the edges of her undergarments, the coarse white fibers parting neatly between my fingers. Then I moved to kiss her again and gasped at the feeling of her teeth on the skin of my throat. She'd moved so fast... I tried to swallow but knew I could not.

She growled this time, and I closed my eyes as I felt the sound come into me. _Submit_, it said in her silken whisper. _Succumb. You're mine_. That and the pressure of her canines at my throat told me that I had better do exactly what she wanted.

Fortunately, I knew exactly what that was.

I held her, after. It was a long, slow drift among the breakers before I finally washed back to shore and I realized what I'd done.

"It wasn't supposed to be like that," I murmured, eyes fixed on the cracks in the ceiling. It was as if we'd been three people, her, me and Volterra, and this place had had its way with us. I wasn't sure how much time had passed but, far below us, the feast had only just ended.

She rolled onto her side with a rustle of half-discarded cloth. "Edward, I didn't mind," she said firmly, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. "I liked it. I like _you_. All of you."

All of me. Volterra was me now.

"How much trouble are we in?" she whispered.

I turned toward the empty ceiling as I predicted Aro's reaction. "Heaps."

"Is he calling you?" she asked.

"Not yet." I shook my head. "Byron's trying to explain himself." I smiled. He'd have had no luck hiding the fact that something had happened. Rolfe had a thing or two to say as well, and he must have been better at saying it, all things considered. I didn't know if Richard, Felix or Salome had given their review of our ...performance. It had not been a good feast for Byron, and now the master was displeased. Aro had intended to keep me by his side right up until Heidi arrived, then order me on an errand through the tunnels that would have lasted until the feast was over. Byron had created a situation that had allowed me to leave, facilitating my current ...predicament.

"Hey," Bella whispered, pulling my arm toward her with both hands. "If there was _anything_ that wasn't perfect about that," she said, "then..." she looked me up and down, mostly down, a smile pressed shut against her lips.

"Then?" I asked. I still couldn't read her thoughts. I'd supposed... Well, it had been a silly theory. Sex didn't have as much to do with thoughts as people liked to suppose.

"Then practice makes perfect," she told me.

That was a bad idea. We shouldn't be compounding the problem when we needed to get up, get dressed and work on damage control. I opened my mouth to tell her just that, but it came out as, "We'd better keep quiet."

I couldn't blame what happened next on any distractions. It was less intense, calmer. This time, I remembered that she was my wife, and I treated her as she deserved.

Aro didn't call me until the feast was over. I walked into the audience chamber and he knew. He could see it in the vibrancy of my walk, in the measure of tension that had gone from my eyes. Caius was present, but he seemed more amused than anything else. At the time, I didn't immediately notice how many people were lingering. Usually, a few vampires cleaned up the blood and disposed of the drained bodies, but everyone not assigned such duties left to enjoy the brief flush of fullness elsewhere. I saw Byron scowling from Caius's elbow. At least I guessed it was meant as a scowl.

I paused in the center of the room and waited for one of my masters to speak. Caius looked from Aro to me and back. I reached into my pocket as I walked toward him and, without saying a word, poured a round dozen of Byron's front teeth into Caius's hands. Byron glared at me, but his sunken mouth made him look like an evil old man about to scold children off of his lawn. He'd expected the masters to order Bella to return them to him herself in front of the full guard. His mental image of my lady's public submission had a thick undercurrent of baser desires. I shot him a snarl and had the satisfaction of seeing him recoil, before he regained control of himself.

Aro looked at me with a quiet, strangely sullen, coldness. I breathed in to defend myself. Technically, I'd done nothing wrong. Fighting was not forbidden when there was no risk of detection. If he wished to punish me for finally enjoying the graces of my all-too-willing wife, then by God I'd take whatever he gave me and call it worth the cost.

Before I could speak, there was a guttural sound behind me, quickly stifled. I barely turned my head to see Chelsea of all people cover the mirthless chuckle that had come from her mouth. As I tried to make sense of the images in her head, Afton's set his hand firmly on her shoulder, and met my eyes.

_I guess the whelp is all right after all._

I blinked, wondering why he'd seen fit to think so. I finally took a moment to look around the room. Byron had grabbed his missing ...equipment from Caius's hand and was jabbing them back into his mouth without even a mirror, like a monkey gobbling sweets. The thoughts of the crowd—who'd assembled, I now realized, to watch this exchange—were as uncharitable as they'd ever been to see a powerful creature humiliated, but now they were heavily laced with contempt, and not all of it was coming from the women.

_Wretched beast._

_Always after the new girl. I wish I'd thought to get his teeth. I wish I'd kicked him harder._

_A real man can get a woman to come back for more._

_Should've been the hands. He's far too free with them._

I looked back to the masters, and Caius's eyes all but glittered underneath their layer of dust. As much as he disliked me, the sight of Byron jumping from human to human like a poisoned cricket, trying to scrabble and gnaw a decent cut without messing himself had been the most entertaining thing he'd seen in ages. I probably would have agreed with him if his victims hadn't been shrieking in my head at the time.

Marcus ...it was hard to tell because he moved so little, but ...was he _laughing?_

I finally put the pieces together: _Aro_ might be unhappy about the confrontation with Byron, but the _coven_ thought that Bella and I had been too easy on him.

I turned back to Aro, still not certain what all this would mean.

"In the future, young Edward," my master said evenly, "you will allow Jane to handle the punishment of disobedient members of this coven."

"Yes, Master," I answered quietly.

_I would not have sent him, you know,_ he thought to me.

I was halfway across the room, but he would read me later, reassemble the entire conversation from four sets of thoughts. Aro could be considered evil, in his way, but there were some things that even he held sacred. He could see clearly enough when a mirror was held up close.

_I know_.

After that, Aro had stopped interfering in my marriage. I found out later that it hadn't only been Byron and the disruption he'd caused. _You've got to let him, Master._ Demetri hadn't said it. He'd only considered saying it. However, one of the advantages of working for Aro was that he always knew everything eventually. _He'll be calmer. The girl makes him easier. What does it matter if they spent fifteen minutes in a church?_ Marcus's opinion on the matter had been less articulate, more of a wordless, sullen version of, _Don't ruin this for me,_ with strong implications that Aro already had.

However, Aro had no qualms about scheduling my duties as he pleased. Or maybe it was a parting shot. Bella and I had three more times together in the next week, but then he'd sent me on a trip to Australia with Demetri, Caroly and Adal that turned out to last three months. I'd married Bella as spring had been edging into summer, and the leaves were turning by the time I came home and saw her again. Philip had been out of the cell and Hanako into it.

In the years that had passed since, most of Demetri's predictions had come true. I shouldn't have been surprised. Bella had changed things for me in my old life. Why wouldn't she change things for me in Volterra as well? Bella had been afraid that I wanted to marry her because I'd decided to settle down. I hadn't meant to, but it still happened. For some reason, being married, _really_ being married, made me less restless. The days when I could bear Volterra—or at least in which I didn't dream of escaping—grew more and more frequent until they became how I felt about my life.

Because Aro had been wrong. She _was_ mine. I _was_ hers. I could stand being Volterra's too so long as I knew that. And being Volterra's meant that I had friends, or something like them, and they would back me if I were truly in the right.

I didn't want to think of what would happen if Bella were under suspicion with both of us robbed of that protection.

There was an ominous click of stone on metal, echoing up to the empty ceiling. Aro was alone in the audience chamber, rolling Caius's firestarter over and over against the arm of his throne.

"You know why I've called you here, Edward," he said.

I nodded. "You want to talk about what you saw in Andrew's mind." To give me information that I hadn't been able to get on my own. So I could do my duty. So I could find the spy. So the Volturi would stay strong and keep the law for all time.

His red-gray eyes met mine. "Close enough. Who is the man Andrew saw, Edward?"

"I don't know," I said, a little surprised. I stepped closer, stretching out one hand for Aro to take, "You know I've never seen him, Master."

"But something about him was familiar to you," he pointed out, not touching my arm.

I stopped. He was right. Something about the way the man had spoken. He and Andrew had conversed in English, but something had seemed unusually settled about the man's voice. "I'm not sure, Master. Perhaps that is his gift. It would explain why he was able to plant those suggestions in Andrew's mind."

Aro shook his head. "I've seen many altered minds, Edward. If suggestions were planted, it was by mundane means."

Aro he'd Andrew's conversation with the stranger in the forefront of his mind for me to see, and it was far clearer than the scraps that I'd been able to collect on my own:

_"These western rebels will defeat Beijing. They have spirit. The side with the most spirit usually wins."_

_"That's not what Teacher Bella always says," Andrew had told his stranger. "She says the patient fighter usually wins." He used that phrase a lot within the compound. He'd forgotten that the other man would not know what he meant._

_"Teacher Bella was not talking about wars; she was talking about individual combat."_

I set my teeth together. It wasn't conclusive, not nearly, but the stranger gave out the impression that he knew who Bella was, at least. And that he'd have some insight into her opinion.

There were plenty of explanations. Bella may have developed a reputation, as Jane and Demetri had, as I had.

_Not unless her former students are far more vocal than we have come to expect_, said Aro in response to my unworded thought. _Demetri, Jane and yourself are well known because you are feared_. And what was Bella? A teacher of newborns. Useful, yes. She'd probably been indirectly responsible for the deaths of many of our enemies, but the drill sergeant did not inspire fear the way soldiers did.

_How does he know your mate?_

"I don't know that he does."

"You don't know," Aro repeated calmly. "Is that what you will say when it is Bella facing the fire, that you don't know that he knows her?"

"Master, there is no call for her to face the fire," I said, only barely managing to keep my voice calm. _You've always hated her,_ I thought uncharitably. It wasn't Bella's fault that her mind would not submit to Aro's power. I would have thought that a man over three thousand could accept that he could not always have his way.

But Aro hadn't decided. Not yet. Executing Bella, even if she was not the real spy, would give the Volturi the appearance of effectiveness. It would buy time to find the real culprit. But Aro had not fully set upon doing it. That was why he was speaking to me alone rather than with Caius, Marcus and the full guard as witnesses.

"You do me wrong, young Edward," Aro said with only a touch of coldness in his words. "While little Bella and I do not share the wonderful rapport that I enjoy with so many of my dear ones, I certainly do not wish her harm, not if she is innocent. She does not always do her duty cheerfully, but no one could fault her obedience. Or, until recently, her results."

Bella was a means to an end for him and always had been. She was his, though, like I was his, and he wouldn't hurt her. Not if I found him a better way. Any better way.

Would I throw some other member of the coven in front of the maglev if it meant Bella would not be harmed? Well there was no question about that, not to my mind. The only problem was that none of them would make a more plausible patsy than she would, even if I could make some reasonably convincing case. No, my only true hope was to find the real spy.

_You see, young Edward_, Aro thought clearly, _you are not so different from myself._

I looked up, not trusting myself to speak. But my master was merciful. He dismissed me.

For a moment I only sat still outside the closed doors of the audience chamber. I allowed myself to think about slumping down against the pillars and leaning my head against the carved stone, to express the weakness that I felt in my heart.

I'd been an idealist once, long ago, when I'd been Carlisle's son. I couldn't put my finger on exactly when I'd gotten so pragmatic. Or was it only that my current life gave me fewer pretty excuses with which to decorate my actions?

Of all things, I blamed Andrew. If he had not run away, then I could have stayed in Volterra and might well have had the matter well in hand by now.

Without the coven behind me, whom could I trust? Bella? With my soul, but the guard would suspect anything she did, now that Caius was undermining her. Renata? I could trust her to act like the placid drone that Chelsea had made of her. Rolfe? Perhaps. Demetri? If I could convince him. Aro, Caius and Marcus could be trusted to be themselves.

I felt the edge of a storm-gray cloak brush my ankle. I looked up to see a cloaked figure pass by me, allowing me to read her meaning in every measured step she took. I followed her at a discreet distance until we found a place to talk in one of the alcoves.

_The coven is turning on Bella_, Caroly thought intently. I gave half a smile. She'd spent the hours since our return from France productively, it seemed. The haunted look on her face stopped it. Bella had been a respected member of the guard for all of Caroly's recollected life. She'd never really expected that to change. But she could see for herself that patterns of loyalty within the compound had twisted like cables, leaving Bella alone at the center of some great web. For her, it was like the world ending. _What now?_

"Aro charged me with finding the real spy," I murmured. "Once I do, she will be exonerated."

_Aro's touched everyone in the coven. There isn't a spy_.

"Then it's someone who can hide things from him."

_That isn't possible._

"Yes it is," I answered certainly.

_How?_

My mouth opened but no sound came out. "It just is," I answered. I rubbed one hand across my forehead, which suddenly hurt like the dickens. "It's all about forgetting."

"But we can't forget," Caroly said.

"Yes we can," I answered, closing my eyes against the glaring lights in my brain. I'd have sworn that vampires couldn't get migraines.

She sat down next to me, looking up at me with soulful red eyes. "If you're right," she said, "then the spy might not even know that he's a spy," she said. "We got cornered in Xi'an by the Manchurian Candidate."

It was closer to the original _Total Recall_, but yes.

Caroly licked her lips. "Well then the first thing we've got to do is figure out who _could_ have known about these missions," she said. "You can't tell the Romanians things that you don't know."

I smiled, closing my eyes.

"We?" I asked, almost playfully. My girl.

She narrowed her eyes cuffed me hard on the shoulder. _You know perfectly well, "we." So what do we do?_

I raised an eyebrow, but, like most of the women in my life, she was right.

"We set a trap."

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For those who wish to understand my first statement, _SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER_ okay that should do it.

WTF moment #1 was what happens to Carlisle. Think about it. If _Twilight_ were a regular vampire story, one of the many differences would be that Carlisle would be the protagonist, most of the action would involve his voyage of self-discovery, and Bella and Edward would be the starcrossed-lovers B or C plot. Carlisle is the one who figured out they could live without preying on humans. Carlisle has had the storied life in which he had adventures as a solitary nomad. His life as a coven leader is only the most recent chapter, starting with his decision to turn Edward. From the Volturi perspective (canon Volturi, not my own take), Carlisle is the one who posed a threat.

In the context of the movie, all of Edward and Bella's plans for their future were almost entirely dependent on Carlisle. Life as they know it is not possible without him. _That_ is why it was so amazing.

As for WTF moment #2... Well, it was the last movie, and _The Dark Knight Rises_ showed that the last movie can kill off and destroy any part of the canon (Bruce Wayne gives up on Wayne enterprises and on the city his family helped build? _Come on!_). But at least _The Hobbit_ rocked my world. If Andy Serkis doesn't win best supporting actor... Even if the rest of the darn thing had been crud covered in a layer of nougat and then more crud, it still would have averaged out to fantastic because of the Gollum scenes.

drf24


	45. Ch 44 Mission

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

I'd been debating whether to post this as one chapter or two. I wanted to see how the second half turned out before making that decision. Both parts are a bit exposition, this one more so.

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"Whatever or whoever was in Seattle was truly beginning to frighten me. But the idea of the Volturi coming was just as scary," –Bella, _Eclipse_

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"I've been asking around," said Caroly. "Two more teams were attacked while we were gone."

"Casualties?"

"Injuries only. So far."

"Lost mission objectives?"

Caroly tipped her head to the side without smiling. _A witness was killed by our enemies. Darien and Laurel failed to stop it._

I breathed out. "Did word of that get out?"

_No. He was the only witness_.

That would change.

Even without her thoughts, I could read the layers of meaning in her voice. Our enemies had struck twice while we were out on a wild goose chase. An unaffiliated vampire, a citizen of our hidden world, had died while under our protection. Two more sets of our brethren had returned and looked at Bella with questions in their eyes. Two more chances for rumors to spread. Much more and the Rumanians would gather supporters.

It also meant that our spy had been in Volterra and active while we were gone. I closed my eyes. If Bella had come with us to Paris, she would not be suspect now.

Why did everything have to happen at once? Outside our walls, things in the human world were getting worse. The Union was maintaining diplomatic relations with both sides of what the media was euphemistically calling "the Asian divide," but only days before Demetri, Caroly and I returned Andrew to Volterra, the western rebels had made public their alliance with the Taiwanese government. There was now no question of where they'd been getting late-model pulse rifles and medical supplies, though they'd probably been getting most of their food from somewhere else.

Worse, an alliance with Taiwan meant that the Americas would probably follow. They'd have to after what had happened there when Caroly had still been earning her cloak.

After the rise of Communism in the mid-twentieth century, Chiang Kai-shek had fled to Taiwan with what remained of the Nationalist government. Taiwan's full name was still technically "Republic of China." Although other countries had later recognized Mao and his successors as legal rulers of mainland China, the two nations had never formally separated. In fact, as late as 2005 and again in 2016, the Beijing government had threatened to regain control of Taiwan by "non-peaceful means" if Taiwan ever declared itself to be a separate country.

The pirates had been the excuse. There had been raids throughout the Indian Ocean, and they'd spread from there, especially as the number of young men outran the number of accessible, legal jobs. As the piracy interfered with trans-Pacific freight, China became a less attractive site for manufacturing, and those jobs started to disappear as well, making illegal activity even more appealing. The Chinese navy had been sent to patrol from Hainan almost to Korea, but the ships passed far too close to Taiwan for anyone's comfort, and too often to be entirely coincidental.

Things had gotten so tense that, in 2015, the U.S. government had even sent troops and aircraft carriers to support the Taiwanese military, which had suffered cutbacks after 2012 for economic reasons. The thinking had probably been that the Chinese wouldn't attack directly if they knew there would be a Western response.

The Chinese government had claimed that the pirates were using Taiwan as a base and demanding that the Taiwanese either put a stop to their activities or allow the People's military to do so. Most people had considered the idea preposterous, transparently false. Except it wasn't. Aro had put the pieces together three weeks before the Republic of China Military Police. One minor band had worked out a deal to fence goods with a street gang in a northern port town. Hardly a job for the Taiwanese military, let alone the People's interference. But the Chinese fleet had demanded access and been refused twice in a three-week period. Tensions had risen, culminating in what had since come to be called the Battle of Hsinchu City.

They'd sent eight of us. Eight. And we'd still had our hands full with the local vampires who had been taking advantage of the confusion, not to mention the opportunits who'd moved in.

One vampire in particular had been feeding recklessly. It hadn't hit the newspapers—yet—but internal communiques within the American and Taiwanese military and civilian enforcement organizations had reported disappearances. A midshipman. A city police officer. A watchman guarding the American base outside the city. An agent of the Taiwanese home guard. If the American and Taiwanese militaries ever got to comparing notes, it would not take long for them to put the pieces together.

Eventually, Jane had decided to split our group. Demetri would hunt the lone vampire while she went south after the covens. She'd let him choose his underlings, and he'd taken Caroly and me. That was the first time the three of us had gone off alone together. I'd known that he'd been intrigued by the way my gift worked with his, but I'd expected him to prefer his longtime partner Felix. We still hadn't been sure that Caroly had a talent. I suspected that he'd just wanted a reliable grunt.

So Jane had gone south with Alec, Felix, Darien and newborn Yifei, and Demetri had tracked our mystery man back and forth across the county for ten nights in a row without so much as catching sight of him. And he was growing more careless, making less and less effort to hide the bodies.

All the while, the area was crawling with highly trained, triply caffeinated military personnel on the lookout for anything suspicious. The Chinese wanted to find the pirates so that they'd have an excuse to make landfall and establish a "temporary" military presence on the island, and the Americans and Taiwanese wanted to prevent that, preferably by finding them first.

One night, Caroly and I snuck into the makeshift U.S. military base—the only permanent foreign bases on the island belonged to Singapore—so that I could gather intel only to find that our vampire had made his kill on board a Taiwanese warship. Neither Demetri nor myself—nor anyone else for all we could determine—had managed to lay eyes on our quarry, but as time passed, we managed to get a sense of him. This hunter was no James, with his complicated plans. The sense that formed like a heavy brown mist in Demetri's consciousness muttered about choosing the right one, showing the strong that they were weak, punishing their arrogance. There was a deep undercurrent of bitterness, of some destiny blocked or of some reward that had turned to dust. I didn't immediately know how that would help, but I'd been on too many hunts to discount it.

And there were lines, withered and dead. I'd pictured them as blood vessels extending outward from a tumor. The impression had so reminded me of Chelsea that I'd wondered if she'd been sent out to the island to spy on us. But the idea had appeared so naturally in my head that I'd finally decided that it was my own mind playing tricks on me.

It would be months before we would learn that that had been my first taste of Caroly's particular vision. The dead veins were dead connections. She'd known that our quarry had lost someone important, probably someone he hadn't liked very much.

We'd figured out what sort of prey he liked, but for every ten targets that we could predict, there were a hundred more that he could choose instead. Our only real advantage was that he didn't seem to know anyone was looking for him. He was still being carefree, still feeding every few nights. Fortunately, Aro wouldn't count a high human bodycount against us.

For two nights we chose three targets, one for each of us, never too far apart. The first night, we camped out at the U.S. army base. The second, we hid on board a Taiwanese patrol ship. Both times, he stole other prey. It wasn't working. There seemed to be a pattern to the kills, but it took me days to figure out what it might mean.

"It might be one of the marines this time," Caroly had suggested as we waited out the next day. The impending military action had produced enough vacant buildings for our purposes, and there was always the odd chance of finding our quarry in one of them. "He's taken one of almost anything else," she'd said hesitantly, "and so far he hasn't repeated himself." She'd been so deferential then. She wouldn't grow into her Bella-esque brashness until she had many successful missions behind her.

Demetri had said nothing, simply pulling Caroly's suggestion into his thoughts. I stared at the soft dust on the floor of the basement of the office building where we were hiding. Idly, I traced an outline of the coast, the main feature of the area where our vampire had been making his reckless kills. Carefully, I marked the borders of Hsinchu County. With my smallest finger, I made mark for each of the seven kills we knew of, on land and on ships. There were probably more.

I barely heard Caroly coming up behind me.

"Are you tracking the pirates?" she asked.

I'd turned around, but Demetri had only moved his eyes.

"What?" I asked.

Demetri had risen to his feet and taken in my drawing.

"The police officer, the midshipman, the private on the shore..." he'd stated.

My mind cleared, and I made the connection, "He makes his kills near places where the pirate fleet was sighted..." I said, marking each location, "One day before the police officer. Two days after the midshipman. In a cove five miles from where the private was on watch."

Caroly's lips parted.

"It's where he's waiting out the day," she breathed. "He's _on a ship?_"

I nodded. Demetri's mind clicked through each possibility. There were a million ways he could be hiding from the human crew, even on a small craft. He didn't need to sleep; he could hold uncomfortable positions for hours; and, with a full belly, he could ignore all that pulsing food. There had been several reports of pirates raiding at night and hiding during the day. It would have been even easier to for a vampire to remain on board a ship if it was berthed and empty with most of the crew resting on shore.

Demetri tilted his head back. "We need to change tactics," he said. A pirate fleet was easier to find than a man, but we had not been looking for one. Demetri spent some time at my makeshift map before stepping to the side and drawing a fresh one. The three of us had argued about the tide, the pirates' destinations, possible nearby targets as we'd waited for the light to die. By the end of the day, I could not have said which of us had truly put our strategy together.

Demetri and I had been trying to gain a sense of a single vampire for days. It was not easy for to switch to stalking a small flotilla of pirate ships, especially when those ships had a tendency to split up. Usually, they only showed themselves together when they struck. That was probably why the human authorities hadn't caught them yet. When there were supplies to be collected or goods to be fenced, only one boat would come to land.

There were not many places it could do so, not in a populated place like Taiwan. That was probably how our vampire was planning his kills.

Even though I knew better, I couldn't help imagining a great wooden pirate ship like the ones in those movies that my old Cullen brothers had liked so much. Modern pirates had nothing so majestic. Some pirates captured their victims with nothing but a speedboat and handheld weapons. The reports from this area had described slightly larger craft. Most of the pirate attacks took place near shore; the bottleneck getting into the recently dredged Port of Hsinchu had provided a target or two. Unlike Golden Age buccaneers and Renaissance corsairs, however, the pirates usually didn't usually steal the ship's cargo, and unlike the Indonesian and Somali pirates of the first years of the century, they rarely captured prisoners for ransom. Instead, they went for smaller, lighter items, such the crew and passengers' personal valuables and the safes in which the captains kept ready cash. That meant that they needed both fences who could convert jewelry and electronics to money and suppliers who could convert money into necessities.

It took another two days to identify the next dropoff site. First, Caroly and I had located the pirates' associates. After two years as a screwup, it was strange to find an aspect of tracking that I could actually do. Western Taiwan did not have much in the way of desolation, but these men had managed to locate a place to moor their ship. A few miles south of the Houlong, there was a stretch of coast inhabited by nothing but farmland. Along that coast there was an inlet lined with warehouses just tall enough to shield a boat. One bribed nightwatchman and an enterprising group of criminals could douse their lights and anchor long enough to make a an exchange.

Or for one shadowy figure to return to his nest a few hours before dawn. His thoughts were full of his next challenge—the American military base, which he'd cased that very night. At first, he did not climb on board, flattening himself against the outer hull and hanging on with clawlike fingers as the ship's three-man crew started the engine and headed for open water.

When he judged it safe to make for the tiny cargo bay and hide, he slipped one foot over the side, moving one limb at a time, preventing his shifting weight from alerting the humans on board. It was a trick I knew well.

By then, the bodies of the pirates, necks bloodlessly snapped, sat near the wheel, which Caroly held steady with one hand.

His fingers flexed, reminding me like a spider testing her web, bright red eyes glittering in the dark.

"How'd you find me?" he asked, giving us an American accent with a breath of Spanish.

Demetri answered, speaking for all three of us, "You were sloppy."

The vampire didn't move a fiber, but I could see him mentally inching toward the side.

_I've ditched these assholes before; I can do it again_.

"Don't be a fool," I told him, but I focused on the images in his head. He didn't think we were after him because of his feeding; he thought it was something else. If he'd had a brush with the Volturi and lived to boast of it, I wanted to know when and for what offense, but not if it meant risking his escape. He'd been too hard to find.

Those hunter-red eyes flickered toward me again, but the thoughts came in a different voice, a memory. _"Yellow-eyes ...Our thoughts aren't safe."_ I frowned, but he didn't think of anything else important, and all I could glean was his name: Raoul.

Before I could wonder about anything else, we were on him. I had to hand it to this man. He struck me as being young, no newborn but not more than a few years old. He made up for his inexperience in originality. He moved sideways, grabbing hold of the carbon-fiber RADAR mast and launching himself at Demetri. He was neatly flipped over the rail, and Raoul bolted in the other direction, making for the water. It took Caroly and me both to head him off.

It was a difficult dismemberment. This man didn't need both legs to swim, and he knew it, so he kept fighting long after most vampires would have given up. By the time Demetri climbed back on board, he was in pieces.

Throughout the fight, there was an odd sense growing in the back of my mind, many voices murmuring at once, but they'd been at least a mile away. I ignored the sound, supposing that the course set by the human sailors was taking us back along the coast toward Hsinchu.

Finally, this man who'd made no fewer than ten kills, who'd risked bringing our kind to the attention of the armies of three countries, lay in pieces at our feet.

_You really don't want to light me on fire,_ was his last coherent thought.

"You'll find that we do," I answered out loud as Caroly started the flames.

_No, I mean that—_ The thoughts began to shrivel and twist as his brain turned to ash.

"That," Demetri said slowly as the flames spread across the boy's scattered limbs, "was irritating."

"It's over, Brother," I told him.

At my elbow, Caroly nodded, "We'll check the hold for evidence and then go home." She nodded toward the bodies of the human sailors. "How should we get rid of those? It seems a shame to waste good blood, but I suppose we'd better send them overboard."

I nodded and moved to assist her. The nagging feeling had been growing worse by then. Something about those minds didn't feel like a town. Most of them weren't asleep, for one thing.

I put the pieces together just before the radio began to shriek and running lights came up on three warships bearing down on us from open water.

I could have answered it, of course. I could probably have figured out how to work that type of radio within a minute, and my Chinese was good enough to fake a response to the messages that were being sent; simple orders to surrender or be fired upon. The only problem was that they weren't all coming from the same people.

Three different navies had been searching the water for criminal ships. We'd boarded one, killed anyone who might have known to steer clear of patrolled areas, and then we'd lit a beacon.

Demetri had uttered a truly foul curse in Russian and leaped over the side, on purpose this time. Caroly and I both followed him without a second thought.

It ended up being a nine-mile swim back to the island. I overheard both sets of ships planning boarding parties and thanked any heaven that might exist that we'd shoved the bodies over and that it was shark season. The military ships must have made some attempt to communicate with each other, because we had a good head start before the ship-to-ship fire began. I turned around long enough to see the explosion as the pirates' fuel supply went up. At least we wouldn't have to worry about evidence in the hold.

The fighting lasted for two days. The Chinese would claim that the incident had taken place in an international zone, that the Americans had fired upon them without provocation. The Americans would say that the People's Navy had violated Taiwanese territorial waters and that they had fired only on the pirate ship. They would claim that they ordered the Chinese to leave. The Chinese claimed that the Americans had been interfering with a legal attempt to apprehend criminals in a zone with universal jurisdiction. It was the worst international incident in the area since the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, leaving twenty-three dead, not counting vampire kills.

Although the Battle of Hsinchu City did not at that time result in further hostilities, it showed where the lines were drawn. Both Beijing and Washington had been willing to back off, but there was no denying the rift any more. The ramifications for the vampire world were slightly better: No one in the media cared about random murders when it looked like world war three was about to start.

I'd been worried about Caius's response. It had taken us more than ten days to track down our man, and then only after he'd left considerable evidence behind. Demetri had walked into the audience chamber ready to take full responsibility.

Demetri had been team leader, so he'd told our tale in an even, level tone. I'd watched the crowd, again visualizing the ties between the tracker and his brothers and sisters like thick blue cables, humming with the energy of the information he was giving. He described our mission in level, clinical tones. He spoke of events, but the crowd heard courage, innovation, action, result.

Caius wasn't telepathic, but he could see and hear the way his servants were reacting. Aro had looked at me and I'd nodded slightly.

The guard thought that we had done well. If Demetri couldn't be punished, then he had to be rewarded. Besides, causing an international incident wasn't a crime on the order of leaving evidence or failure, and we'd done netiher.

Caius had offered Demetri a boon for leading the team that had caught such difficult prey, although his tone made it clear that it would be a small one. The surprise tumbling in my tracker's mind hadn't shown on his face. Immediately, he asked for newborn Yifei to be granted the medium gray cloak of a permanent member of the coven. Felix had spoken well of her, and Demetri had always had an eye for talent. Yifei was still with us.

Through all this, Marcus's glazed eyes had moved from Caroly to Demetri to myself and back, and he'd gently laid his hand on Aro's arm in the masters' equivalent of whispering in his ear. Aro had called me over, taken my memories from my mind, laid them out them like a fortuneteller spreading her cards.

They'd sent us to Kenya next. Just the three of us. Then New Zealand. After that I'd stopped wondering, and having Caroly and Demetri at my side began to feel like having another right arm. In time, we'd both figured out how Caroly's powers worked and how to use them to our advantage, but that hardly mattered. The three of us together, we were Aro's treasure. He'd finally had his matched set. It had gone some way toward reducing his disappointment in me for my failure with Jane. And... and sometimes I felt like Aro had forgiven me, but I couldn't remember what I'd done to offend him. Marrying Bella without his consent; that must have been it.

Back in the present, I looked my Caroly in the eye. At least I didn't have to doubt that her priorities were in line with my own: If I had to cause an international incident to keep Bella from being executed as a spy, there was no question in my mind that they would both help me do it. She'd do it for Bella, and Demetri would do it to catch his man.

I heard Caroly breathe in and out, heard her think about the nervousness sweetening my scent. "Could we at least try to do this without blowing up any major countries?" she asked.

"That would be highly desirable," I responded.

Caroly looked off down the hallway, pursing her lips the way Bella did. "If we're setting a trap, then where do we set it?"

I leaned back against the wall at the sound of high-heeled shoes. An ashy blond woman in a tan suit edged in green walked past us carrying a legal tablet with spreadsheet function. One of the accounting staff with a memo too delicate for the compound intranet.

"We're setting it in the one place Master Aro hasn't thought to check," I told her.

She watched the human disappear into the stairwell and then looked back at me.

I raised an eyebrow.

Caroly's forehead cleared as she realized what I meant. "I'll get Demetri," she said.

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drf24


	46. Ch 45 Trap

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

Whatever you were going to do, go do it. It's okay to be mad. It's okay to not be mad. Don't cancel your birthday party. Terrorist attacks don't just scare people; they disrupt the economy and it doesn't need more disrupting. Everyone in Kansas or Maine or California who hits the movies or takes the kids to the zoo as planned is lessening the economic impact of the day Boston shut down and shouldering the load for the guy from Waltham who can't get out of bed or the spectator who needs a few days to cool down or the runner who won't be back at work until after surgery. _You_ do not need a rock to hide under.

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"If she betrays our secrets, are you prepared to destroy her?" –Caius, _New Moon_

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"This is a bad idea, Edward," said Bella, the edges of her dark gray cloak snapping in the air as she came to a stop in front of me.

"My love, don't set a bad example for the novices," I said in a loud whisper. It had been years since she'd moved at inhuman speed by accident.

"Forget that for now," she said insistently. "The masters sent you after Andrew; that was bad enough—" I tried not to wince at her disloyal words. "—but you don't have to volunteer to go out into the field again."

Heidi shot us a look as she walked past with Richard.

It was one thing for Bella had to criticize the masters out loud at all, knowing that Aro would hear it all the next time he read me, but to have a spat in the middle of the reception area where anyone in the guard or on the staff could hear would make us the target of gossip for weeks.

"Bella, we've been over this. Caroly and I will be fine," I said, moving past her down the hall. I'd had to make a stop in Communications to check our gear. "It's just an errand for Master Caius."

"Xi'an was just an errand for Master Caius!" She stepped in front of me, putting one hand on either side of my face. I didn't want to look at her, but I did. I never wanted to think about what the masters might do to Bella when I was away. It wasn't lost on me that Caroly, Rolfe and myself were her best defenders, and that Caius had stood in the feasting hall that morning and ordered all three of us to Marseilles.

"You know, I could ask Master Caius to allow you to come too. Renata can manage Doreen and Ichiro by herself for a few days."

"We both know she can't. That's not the point. I'm not worried about me," she said firmly. I could see her meaning in the shadows behind her eyes. We'd talked of it earlier.

"What if you're being sent into a trap?"

Caroly had brought Demetri to the practice tunnel where I'd been waiting with Bella and Rolfe. It wasn't the best location for a meeting, but aside from the Tower it was probably the least likely place for anyone on the human staff to be. They didn't generally wander the compound, but it wasn't unheard of.

"What do the attacks have in common?" I asked, tracing out a chart in the dust at our feet. "In Xi'an we were after artwork. What about the others?"

"Cairo was a standard mission," said Caroly. "They sent Laurel and Darien to take out some nomads. Chelsea went with them. Frankfurt was reconnaissance, confirming rumors of possible Romanian activity."

"Who knew about it?" I asked.

"Everyone," said Bella with a dispirited shrug. "Caius gives us our orders in public; anyone who wasn't there could have heard it from someone who was. Logistics hears about what cars we want sent where. Communications knows what equipment has to work with which kind of local interference and who's going to need camera disruptors. Accounting gets the bills. Our best bet is to figure out when and how the information was sent; then we might be able to narrow it down to a department, at least."

Rolfe gave her a mock-suspicious look, "You seem to have put a lot of thought into how to send intel without being noticed, little Bella."

She rolled her eyes. I was less tolerant. "I think we can abandon this line of reasoning," I clipped darkly.

Rolfe rolled his eyes. "Okay _fine_. But if your mate kills us all when we're not looking and then gets executed, don't come crying to me."

"Your concern for our well-being never fails to touch me, Rolfe," Bella said sourly.

"Completely selfish," Rolfe answered. "You're the only one who laughs at my jokes."

"Have you considered getting better jokes?" she asked.

"Who was sent to Frankfurt?" asked Demetri over his folded arms.

"Alec, Corin, Richard and Marjane," answered Caroly.

Three different missions; three different continents; three different leaders. Our enemies were coordinating attacks across immense distances. There was no way they could do it without advanced knowledge of where everyone would be. Other than that, I hadn't been able to discern any pattern. I'd hoped that Demetri would see something that I didn't, pull the trail out of the invisible tracks, but—

Bella shook her head. "But why these people and not anyone else? We had what, six, seven teams in the field? All of these teams had fighters with supernatural talents," Bella had said, and then, what only she would have dared to breathe out loud: "Aro's favorites."

Demetri was Demetri. The thought came without ego, just an ice-clear knife that cut to the center of things: _Aside from Jane and Alec, whom in the guard does Aro love more than us?_

Perhaps Chelsea. No one else. Even Heidi was replaceable. The question was whether our enemies would know that. According to the masters' memories, for what remained of the Romanian leadership, this was beyond territory and ascension. Stefan loathed Caius with a rich, personal vigor that Marcus had found quite memorable. In some ways, their relationship was as deep as if they'd shared a coven for years. He was more than motivated enough to learn Aro's moves and attack him where he was weak, and the events surrounding Jane's mysterious illness had shown Aro's limitations to our world. Aro's collection of talented vampires was the coven's strength but his own weakness.

And how did you take down a vampire with superpowers, decades of experience and the best combat training in our world? With overkill. With newborns.

"So they don't only know where Caius is sending us," said Rolfe. "They know who's going."

Back in reception, Heidi and Salome were waiting and eager to overhear anything they could bring to Caius as proof of the yellow-eyed witch's treason, and Bella looked at me with wide, careful eyes.

"Don't go," she whispered.

I closed my eyes. Even the desk clerk pointedly pretending not to notice our conversation knew how dangerous it was to even speak of disobedience. I took Bella's hand away from my face, holding it tightly. "I will do my duty," I said, kissing the ends of her fingers. "And then I will come back."

Sometimes I could forget how many people were involved in every mission. In the field, it was all about one's partners, but the preparation could involve ten times as many people. Demetri went to communications to requisition our earpieces. We were unlikely to encounter any infrared cameras, and the preciously expensive new scrambler equipment was still being carefully rationed. I was in logistics arranging a car to carry us out of Volterra and obtain the latest maglev and freight schedules. Felix was in the art department triple-checking the provenance of a painting in Marseilles that Caius wanted us to have a look at on the way back from our primary goal of tracking down a nomad near Montpelier.

Even after all this time, I didn't look forward to time in a cargo container with Felix, but it wasn't nearly as hard it had been. The years had changed things between Felix and me. I had little respect for the man, but Demetri loved him, and there was no denying that he had his qualities. Caius and Aro had given him guidance. Instead of becoming another brute, putting his fabled strength to no better purpose than feeding himself, he'd protected our kind. Among vampires, he passed for a hero. If Bella was right, and there was a set of hostile newborns waiting for my team in France, we could hardly have a better partner. Outside the compound, Demetri and Caroly were my world. I was glad and grateful that Felix's was with them, especially if Bella was right.

Many of Europe's local train lines had been converted to induced propulsion. Individual passenger cars were fitted with powerful magnets. In lieu of heavy combustion engines, electromagnetic field generators embedded in the tracks switched polarity to propel them forward to the next exchange point. It conserved fuel, but it required precise control to keep the cars from hitting each other. Long-distance freight lines, heavy with cargo containers, had enough scale to make the efficiency of magnetic propulsion less attractive. With this much mass involved, old-fashioned fuel cell and conventional engines were inefficient but far safer. A team like ours could be in Montpelier in a matter of hours. The question was what would be waiting for us when we got there.

That was as far as the new transportation technology could take us, however. On missions like this, we could only go to where we knew our quarry had been, and he most certainly would have moved on by then. Demetri and I would go to work, tracing his movements and sending reports back to Volterra whenever it was reasonably safe to do so.

And that was what really made this spy matter so impressive. If we didn't know where we would be, then the spy wouldn't either. Any information had to reach our enemies before it became useless. If our spy were using data packets, occasional updates, then we could only be attacked near our disembarkation point in Montpelier or near the painting in Marseilles. If the spy had installed a recording system or some other method of reporting to the Romanians in real time, then the attack might take place further afield, where they could choose ground favoring an ambush.

I was still convinced that the informant was a human. It was a shame that neither Bella nor myself had much patience for composing sociological papers. Or any way of publishing. The humans of the compound were probably the most intriguing subculture of the twenty-first century. There had been mortals serving the Volturi for thousands of years, of course, but the _current_ dynamic had taken shape after Caius had started turning three and four humans a year for the novitiate, and it hadn't fully stabilized.

I only knew a little about the previous community. Most of my information came from that one round of interviews I'd done with Felix before Caius had ordered me to turn Gianna, God rest her blackened scrap of a soul. From what little I could tell, humans from each department had had little contact with each other. Whenever Gianna saw a new vampire arrive, she'd immediately wondered if it was someone from legal or accounting, the people she'd only seen in memos. It hadn't occurred to her that _no one_ was ever turned.

It was a good thing, too. The humans on the staff in those days had ranged from backstabbers to full-blown psychopaths. People without shame tended to make good warriors but disloyal teammates. I began to wonder how long Gianna would have lasted in any case.

I could have asked Caroly, of course, but her human memories, never clear, had faded to shadows. Somehow, the fact that she was pure vampire without any mortal past to torment her was a great comfort to me.

After the calm newborn project had begun, though, many of the old rules had been relaxed. Instead of hiding the truth from our employees, we flaunted it. We made sure that novices were occasionally seen by their former coworkers. Then Marcus had decreed that humans in different departments would be allowed to speak to each other on business matters. He'd even started work on a shared cafeteria, carefully soundproofed, where they could interact. They gossiped almost as badly as the guard, but it was hard to say which changes improved productivity more.

The masters had once had only two criteria for selecting staff: professional skill and personal discretion, including a willingness to sever human ties. Now with Caius having a few of the staff turned every year, a third factor had come into play: _potential_. It wasn't enough to recruit from the anonymous cream of Europe's finest law and financial schools; Aro wanted humans with possible gifts; Caius wanted fighters and trackers; Marcus wanted ... he wasn't very specific about what he wanted, but he cared more about the selection process than he had before.

Bella and I probably knew the more about the human population of the compound than anyone but their handlers. She liked to learn about them as humans in case they became her students, and I was in charge of ...information security. I scouted for Aro the way I'd once scouted for Carlisle. Here, though, it wasn't the vampires who disappeared when I found trouble. That was probably why Aro hadn't bothered to touch each member of the staff; he knew I was already watchful. But I had been looking for carelessness, not spies.

It would have been hard to fool me, but it was possible, especially if the human in question had been briefed by a vampire familiar with my reputation. Anyone who had access to mission information would also know the intervals at which I monitored the human staff. It would have required nearly vampire-level mental discipline, but a properly briefed human could avoid thinking of his treachery unless it was right in front of him.

_Demetri checked in at 3:06 a.m. Send the packet..._

Or unless the spy thought that the mind reader had gone to France with Caroly, Felix and Demetri.

"Her," I said, tapping the screen in front of me. "Lydia."

"You're sure?" asked Rolfe.

I nodded. On the screen, the human woman tucked something into her pocket and got up from her workstation. She was planning to walk to the water cooler and, if the coast was clear, sneak off and send her report.

Rolfe gave a good-natured snort. "No thanks to little Bella's acting skills," he joked.

"I'd like to see you do better when it's your ass on the line," murmured Bella.

Rolfe raised an eyebrow.

In the middle of all this, I focused on the woman's thoughts, wondering for a moment how a creature who looked so ordinary could have caused so much trouble. Disciplined indeed. I was amazed that she could focus on her work at all—software for the communications equipment—with the apprehension running through her. Underneath the forms and lines of code, I could see her memories of preparing a data packet with everything she'd overheard and pried out, her hands working a homemade transmitter from a secluded part of the compound, and her plans to do it again. I closed my eyes and saw recording equipment placed at key points in the compound. There was a room I didn't recognize. Had she gone to the Tower?

"Are the others going to be attacked?" asked Bella. Her hand moved to the empty pocket where she kept her com whenever she went into the field. I wanted to warn them too. It had been a necessary risk. To lure Lydia out, we'd needed bait. Demetri, Caroly and I had been a worthy prize.

"It's possible," I added. "She knows that her new masters don't always act on the information she sends."

"What now?" asked Bella.

"We have to get her to Aro, as quickly as possible," I said. My master had known about my plan in advance, of course. My master knew everything.

"Simple enough. Go grab her," said Rolfe.

I shook my head. "If she sees me, she'll know something's up."

"I'll bring her up, Edward," said Bella. "She's seen me before. She'll think it's an interview."

"No, I'll go grab her," Rolfe volunteered. _It'll be better if the person who drags her in isn't Bella or her mate,_ he pointed out. _That way it's not suspect. No one'll say Bella framed her to get herself off_.

I shook my head. "Bella's right. She'll raise the least alarm."

"Okay," said Rolfe, "full disclosure? I need the boon. I want to ask for three weeks away from the guard to go find—" His words broke off as he looked at his shoes. "It's personal, all right?" And I could see a memory of a dark-haired woman in the sweeping dresses that she'd favored.

"Adrienne isn't worth you, Rolfe," Bella said bluntly. "She had her good qualities—" Bella's eyelid twitched, her tell for lying. She was being diplomatic. If Adrienne had good qualities, they did not include courage, love, loyalty or depth, and Rolfe had all four. "—but she was never worth you."

Rolfe eyed Bella sullenly.

_I just want to know where she is._

It was beyond sad. The capacity to love someone forever was one of the true blessings about being a vampire. But when it was unrequited... If Rolfe were human, it would have been possible for time to be his friend. As things were, not even Chelsea could help him. His only hope was that some intense experience would come along to change him as dramatically as Adrienne had, and even then it might not purge his longing and give him peace. Until then, he was the object of pity.

"It won't make a difference," I murmured. She'd only laugh at him. Or use him and throw him away.

_But what if seeing me again does the trick? You said your old sister didn't feel the change for her mate until after he'd felt it for her_.

"A difference of days, Rolfe," I explained. "And Rosalie at least..." I pressed my lips together. "Rosalie actually _liked_ Emmett. She _wanted_ to love him; she half loved him already. She'd have married him even if it had never gone past that. Adrienne was only using you." I put my hand on his shoulder. "If I'd had the slightest idea that your feelings ran this deep, I would have warned you. I am so sorry, my friend."

His eyes were as red as ever, but something in them felt gray.

"Then you owe me," he said simply. "Let me ask. Let me try." And in his thoughts, I could see every minute we'd shared together, every joke that had deflected the coven's anger away from me or Bella, and every time I'd ignored or slighted him, preferring to pour my trust into Demetri or Caroly.

"Not on this," I said quietly. "We're so close. If she gets spooked now, we might lose it all." I would find a way to make it up to him. In the meantime, I turned to Bella. "Take her to the west elevator," I said quietly. I listened carefully for my master's mental voice and found him talking with Alec in the library. Good. "Rolfe and I will have Master Aro waiting on the second floor when the doors open."

Bella nodded tightly and hesitated at the door. Impulsively, I reached out and she hugged me tightly around the neck. If I had a heart, it would be pounding. One touch and Master Aro would know Bella wasn't the spy. One touch and Caius would have his traitor, and this would all be over.

Rolfe started toward the stairwell at a quick human pace. I registered his surprised grunt as I moved past him at top speed. I didn't force myself to be still until I was outside the library doors, but I didn't bother to smooth out my cloak or unmuss my hair. In my mind's eye, I could hear Lydia's alarm as Bella walked toward her with gentle eyes and her mouth fixed in a calm smile.

Rolfe caught up to me as I was dipping to one knee in front of Aro. "Forgive me for intruding, Master, but there is an urgent matter that demands your attention."

Alec looked at me with curiosity, but Aro didn't do more than raise an eyebrow. "Of course, young Edward," he said, taking my arm.

The amusement in his mind fell away as he read my news in his thoughts. _Already?_ he thought. _I must allow Caius to motivate the boy more often_. "Lead the way," he said.

In the basement hallway outside the communications department, Lydia was beginning to grow suspicious, thinking of the waves of sweat that broke out on her palms as Bella's cloak swayed with her steps. I felt something inside me clench. There was something wrong here. There was a darkness in Lydia's mind. Fear was bright; it made people's thoughts flutter like birds. Lydia seemed too heavy.

Why wouldn't Aro move faster? Solving this problem was worth a few seconds of indignity.

_You must read her right away, sir_, I urged. _Before anything can go wrong._

_There is no need for paranoia, young Edward_, though Aro. _Telling the future was never your gift_. And there was a familiar ache at the empty space in my mind.

They'd reached the elevator. Bella pressed the button and smiled, _"They can send dogs and monkeys to Mars, but they can't make these things go any faster?_" Bella said companionably as Lydia forced a laugh. But Rolfe had been right about her acting. Even Lydia could see the tightness at the ends of her mouth.

_Does she know?_ Lydia wondered. _I have to look a fright. Oh God, she knows_.

As they boarded the elevator. I felt the human's thoughts go black, moved toward something that she'd avoided thinking about, that she always avoided thinking about.

"Master—!" I said, grabbing Aro's hand so that he could see what I saw.

I swore. I'd been wrong. Lydia wasn't some fading beauty queen who was afraid of crow's feet. She was like Andrew. She still had some tie to the human world, and the Romanians had gotten hold of it.

Lydia closed her eyes against tears. Oh God, Bella hadn't noticed her reaching for the pill in her right front pocket. However our enemies had gotten to Lydia, they'd found something worth dying for.

"I see it," Aro said darkly, and the hallway dissolved around us. We were at the elevator shaft before another second had passed. We passed Alec, who looked up in alarm.

_"Lydia, what have you—wait!"_ through Lydia's eyes, I saw Bella grab her wrist, force her mouth open and dig out the dark gray capsule. Lydia choked, spitting one lower tooth out onto the floor. And the blood on the linoleum gave her an idea.

"Stop her!" I called down the shaft, knowing Bella would hear me. Bella realized what Lydia was doing just as she clicked open the penknife. "Alec!" I called out, turning my head.

I'd never seen a human that determined. She didn't hesitate. They always hesitated, but metal met flesh and Lydia's last clear thought was the sight of her arterial spray striking Bella's face and clothes.

"No," I growled out loud. "No, no, _no_."

_What in blazes is going on?_ Alec thought behind his mask of a face, looking from Aro to me and back as he trotted toward us.

"Alec, the elevator," Aro said quickly, "everyone on it."

"Yes, Master," he answered.

In the back of my mind, I could feel the chilling field start to form, but it wasn't going to be fast enough. It was already too late. Right now, the key witness in my wife's defense was bleeding out or—worse—my wife had just given in to the bloodlust and killed her.

As the elevator clicked into position in front of us, Rolfe asked, "Okay, what did I miss?"

Faced with one death glare from his master and another from me, Rolfe backed away. I leaned my palm against the elevator frame, not caring that Aro saw my weakness. And Caroly and Demetri, the risks they'd taken. Had they been for nothing too?

There were more footsteps. I recognized Salome's thoughts behind us. _What's happening here? Is there danger?_ besides Alec's wordless focus.

I calmed myself quickly and drew myself up straight as the doors began to open. Damage control. It was time for damage control.

The light from the hallway spilled inside and I saw Bella crouched over Lydia's dead body, burying her face in one corner of her cloak.

No, not her _dead_ body... My mind lightened, despite the scent of blood.

Lydia's arms and legs were as limp as cut leaves, and Bella was trying to wipe the blood from her mouth. The wound on Lydia's neck was red and raw.

And sealed with venom.

"Did—did I stop in time?" she was babbling. "I don't know if I—"

I kissed her full on the mouth, heedless of the blood loosening her lips.

"You did," I said. "Her heart is still beating."

"But she went limp; she—"

"That was me," Alec added helpfully, as he eyed Bella as if seeing her for the first time. _Not a sign_, he thought skeptically even as his influence licked at her sides, ineffectual as mist around a pillar. He'd known that Jane's powers didn't work on her, but he'd always suspected that his own would be more formidable.

I didn't want to turn around, but I did, and Aro's eyes were like ice behind their gray.

"Master," I said, reaching out to him. _Master, you have to do it_, I thought, showing him Alec's unquestioning focus, Salome's vigilance, Rolfe's benign trust that someone would tell him what was going on any minute now.

"Alec, you can release the human," he said, crouching down on the floor of the elevator and carefully placing his hands on either side of her temples.

"But Master, she's been bitten," said Alec. _The venom. The master should not have to live through that_.

"I realize that, my dear Alec," he answered. "But young Edward and little Bella have done their duty, and I must do mine."

Salome brushed past us into the elevator and put her hands on Lydia's arms just before they began to twitch. Rolfe followed, holding her legs down. I wrapped my arms around Bella, tucking her head under my chin, and hoped.

The anesthesia in Lydia's mind receded, replaced by pain. I'd watched people's thoughts warping in that heat, but never through Aro's eyes. Even for my master, seeing her memories was like looking through flames. Faces blurred. Words were lost in the crackle and hiss. There was an image that might have been either Stefan himself or Andrew's mystery nomad, and a voice that might have been Lydia's mother. Eventually, Aro released Lydia's head and rose to his feet.

"Master?" Alec asked carefully.

"Yes, my dear Alec?" asked Aro.

"Now that you are finished, shall I stop her pain?"

Aro looked toward the human who'd begun to whimper into the edge of Salome's cloak. The few thoughts that I could pick out of her head were useless. But Aro had seen enough, from her and from me, to know that she was a spy. That would be enough, wouldn't it? It would save her.

"That will not be necessary, Alec," Aro said. "The human was a traitor." I could have wept with relief.

"Then should we not kill her, Master?" asked Alec.

Lydia's heart was strong, and she would come into her immortality within days.

But how many of her memories would be ash?

"Not yet, my Alec," said Aro. "She still has something I need."

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The magnetic engine system is already used in airports to propel big carts full of baggage around.

This chapter was written last month. I like to get a good way into the next chapter before posting. The theme is coincidental. I don't live near Boston, and the members of my extended family who do are reasonably well. I believe Stephen Colbert put it best: These people are so tough that they had to buckle their hats on. Then there's the Boston PD. It must have been hard to bring him in alive, but that's what the city, the U.S. and the other forty-nine countries deserve.

drf24


	47. Ch 46 All

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

I just powered through "The Hangman's Hands" by Mercurie (and it totally wasn't because a bud of mine recommended the PWP spinoff by StolenMuse, which I read first), and _heck in a hat_. It's based on the recent Marvel movies and focuses on Jane Foster, Loki and Thor. Mercurie describes a sequence in which Foster is trying to develop an equation that will allow the Odinboys to get back to Asgard using Earth technology, and _day-um_. The author is discussing the mathematical side of astrophysics, a branch of science that most of her readers and possibly the author him/herself do not understand (partially because it doesn't exactly exist), and we _still_ see all the emotional aspects of the scientist in research mode; frustration, unpredictability, helplessness, suspicion, disappointment, discovery. I've worked with and for scientists for years. One of my degrees is in biological sciences, and _that_ is what it feels like. We also see the author use words to describe that a character is reaching an epiphany but remains unable to express himself. That is _really hard to do_ and it's been utterly nailed. In short, if you like the _Thor_ and _Avengers_ movies and you have time for something to completely steal your brain, hop over to Archive of Our Own and read it!

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"They're coming for us. All of them," –Alice, _Breaking Dawn_

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I heard my footsteps echoing against the walls and felt a pang of my old craving for tennis shoes. Demetri had made contact less than an hour earlier. They were due back, and I couldn't be anywhere else, not even down below. The whole compound was like a coiled spring waiting for the next piece to fall.

Caroly's team had been attacked near Montpelier.

Renata and I had dragged Lydia down to the cell—the real cell, not the open-barred setup where we were keeping Doreen and Ichiro. I'd come back upstairs to find that Edward had located and disabled Lydia's recording equipment and shown her latest data packet to the masters. It had mentioned a group of enemy newborns in France and it mentioned their target. Except for the fact that they were expecting Edward, the Romanians knew everything about Demetri, his team and his projected itinerary. And Caius _hadn't called them back_. He'd let Edward contact Demetri and warn them, but he knew they were going to be ambushed and he _hadn't_ told them to bug out and come straight home. And I was only allowed to be mad about it in my _head_.

And Edward, my angel, had smiled calmly and told me that Caius was very right, that if our enemies knew we were onto them that would strategy, advantage, initiative blah blah blah. It was like the goddamned _Twilight Zone_ episode where the kid can turn people into puppets with his mind and everyone has to say it's a good thing. Sometimes I didn't remember what it was like to see Edward get angry at anyone but me. I hated what this place had done to him. I hated that I couldn't protect him from it.

But Demetri was on time for once, bless his bony slowpoke ass. He offered me a tight nod as they came into the reception area. This was the part where I normally counted heads like I was mama duck, even though none of my newborns had gone on this trip. Caroly rolled her eyes when she saw me. Even with her mouth shut, that girl spoke fluent sass.

There was a huge tear in Caroly's cloak and Felix had what looked like a field-repaired leg injury—a limp so slight that I wouldn't have been able to see it if I didn't know to look—but other than that, they seemed okay.

"Bella," Demetri said quickly. "Where is Edward? I need to talk to him." In the corner of my eye, I saw Caroly's jaw tense.

"With Master Caius," I said, relieved that at least I didn't _sound_ like I hated the man's dust-clogged guts ...though that was fading a little now that everyone was home. "They're waiting for you on the third floor. Caius wants to see you before the formal report."

He headed toward the stairs without even a nod. Years ago I would have thought it was rude; now I knew it was just Demetri. Felix shot me a grumbly look and lumbered after him.

Caroly fell behind, and I finally got to take a good look at her. As usual, aside from having a face like a statue of a strapping Greek girl hero, she looked about as organized as a haystack in Red Riding Hood's emo castoffs. Par for the course.

"Caroly—"

"Did it work?" she said, flicking the edges of her cloak in front of her arms. "Did you catch the spy?"

"Yes," I said, not wanting to talk about Lydia. "Now your mission—"

"Who was it?" she asked. "What did Master Aro see in his memory?"

"It was a her, actually."

"But you were vindicated," she insisted.

"They know the spy wasn't me." And I gave her the two-second version. I did not want to talk about Lydia.

"Wait," said Caroly. "_You_ turned her?" She stared hard at my face, probably at the little swirls of angry spying-slimeball red swimming like leeches in my irises. Edward said that they'd go away in a couple weeks.

"Yes," I repeated. "It was that or let her die, and at least now Aro can take another crack at her memories."

"But..." I waited for Caroly to let me in on which part of this was confusing her. She pushed her roofthatch hair out of her face and then shook her head.

"More importantly," I changed the subject, "we learned that you were going to be attacked in Montpelier."

She looked away, like there was something she didn't want to tell me.

"Caroly, whatever it is, Edward is going to find out and he won't keep it from me," not where she was concerned.

She looked at me carefully, her ruby eyes glittering like bright sand in the shadows, the way she always did when she knew I wouldn't like what I heard. But she always told me.

"We didn't win this fight, Bella," Caroly admitted. "We drove them off, but we only killed one of them. They nearly took a piece of me along for the ride."

I clasped her upper arm and squeezed reassuringly. At least they hadn't run. Aro would have punished all of them if they'd run. But what she'd said was seriously creepy. Vampires burned their victims; they didn't take trophies.

"Speaking of inconvenient telepaths," Caroly said, "did Edward manage to get anything out of—which one was it? Lydia?"

Yes, that would have been convenient, wouldn't it? "Not much," I answered. "Whenever he comes downstairs, he says there's a flicker of something here or there but nothing concrete." I tried not to shiver. I motioned for Caroly to walk with me toward the east staircase so we could meet Edward and Demetri on the way back from seeing Caius. "Edward said he saw a woman's face that might have been Lydia's mom. He thinks the Romanians might have gotten to Lydia through her, but that it isn't a sure thing. She hasn't said anything to me either."

Caroly looked to the left and then back at me. "Bella," she said, "what do you mean she hasn't said anything to you?"

"I mean some newborns talk but she doesn't." Intermittent screaming. It was too much to hope for her to be a quiet one.

She grabbed me by the arm and brought me up short. "For the love of sanity—Please tell me you're not actually spending time with her," Caroly said.

I forced an eyeroll. "You sound like Edward."

"As long as it's the sound of Edward dragging you out of there by your ears!" she said. Her voice dropped to a whisper, "Bella, three days ago everyone thought you were the traitor. You can't be seen with her. People will talk. They might even think that you turned her to silence her."

Edward had said all the same things, and he'd said them better. But he also said the crowd was looking elsewhere for now.

"Caroly," I said, with far more patience than I'd managed the first time, "having a non-threatening adult vampire around during the transition helps the newborn—"

"—associate the presence of our kind with security and not with conflict; helps them tolerate life in a large coven; _I know_," she finished. "But this isn't someone Caius picked out for the novitiate. This is a traitor. She's ash two seconds after Aro gets what we need from her."

She was right, of course, and it _would_ tie up a loose end for me, but... "Edward thinks that Aro might let her live."

Caroly raked her fingers through her hair ...which made her look like Edward instead of just sounding like him. "Fine. Then let Renata take care of her. Doreen and Ichiro need you as much as Lydia does."

"Actually, they've been coming along pretty well. Salome's been starting them on combat practice."

"You're ten times the trainer she is and everyone knows it. You can't blow off your real duties to— " Her head twisted on her neck, as if she'd heard me make a funny sound. "Wait. Why _are_ you hanging around Lydia anyway? Are you waiting for her to say something?"

I looked at her, _really_ looked at her. Renee had started confiding in me when I was twelve. I wasn't Renee, but she wasn't twelve.

"I thought I would feel something," I admitted.

"You thought you would feel something," she repeated flatly.

"Yes." And I hadn't. She was the first human I'd ever bitten and turned. It was _my_ venom in her, changing her, like Edward's had changed me. So I'd sat there and listened to her whimper and I'd let her hear a friendly voice, just like I'd done with Phillip all the way through Doreen, and it hadn't mattered one damn.

"And you don't see why the middle of an espionage crisis in which you were until very recently the coven's prime suspect _might_ not be the best time to explore the emotional side of turning new vampires?"

Edward. Except blond. And a girl.

"Like you said, she'll be dead in two days."

Caroly gave a snort. "Yellow-eyes," she hissed. "Playing with your food isn't enough? _Ask Aro to let you make a new one_."

I shot her a look that must have been pure poison. But it was treason to say it, even when I was about to be back in what passed for the masters' good graces. "Not everyone makes storm gray, Caroly," and I didn't say the rest: Marcell. Adal. Philip.

Caroly settled back, like an owl fluffing her feathers. "So what does Caius want to talk to Demetri about?"

I looked toward the stairs, the way Edward had gone when he'd heard him calling. I told her what he'd told me:

"He wants to be ready."

"For what?" Caroly asked.

"For whatever Lydia has to say."

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Edward had convinced me not to lead a known traitor into the audience chamber myself. And by "convinced," I mean that he threw a fit and tag-teamed both Caroly and Rolfe to guilt me until I felt like crud for even suggesting it. So I was standing with Caroly at my elbow in my dark gray cloak when Renata brought the newest addition to our creepy little family into the audience chamber.

She'd gotten prettier, the way they all did. Her pale blond hair had thickened to the color of sunlight through frost. Her face was smooth, missing the little sags and slouches of a woman over thirty, but her cheeks were still thin enough to show her cheekbones. Her age looked elegant on her now, like a diamond veil.

In this crowd, that made her about as scary as a fat chinchilla.

Renata and Salome had found her a heavy dark robe to wear. The cloth was probably some expensive weave with a fancy name, but it hung off her arms in a way that suggested chains. The color made her eyes seem even more iridescently red, blood in the snow. She was marched in with Felix's mitts around one arm and Rolfe's around the other.

"Do you think Edward will get a boon for this?" Caroly murmured at the edge of my hearing.

I looked across the crowd to where he was standing near the west pillar, where the masters could see him. It didn't matter. Today, no matter where he stood, he was Aro's right hand. "No," I answered. As far as Caius was concerned, the fact that we had a spy at all was Edward's fault to begin with. If Edward and I had let Rolfe take credit for Lydia, then at least someone would have gotten something.

Caroly shook her head, and I knew she was thinking of all the work Edward had done and all the risks that had been taken. Anyone else would have gotten three boons for masterminding something this good.

"Lydia." It was Caius who spoke from the center throne today. I guess they figured that Aro's usual "dear ones" schtick wouldn't get results. Caius was better as bad cop anyway. "You come before us with a birthright that you do not deserve. We welcomed you into our keep, gave you our trust and the chance to earn your immortality. You have repaid us poorly."

He stepped off the throne, letting the butt of his staff fall heavily against the floor with each step. His firelighter crackled and ozone stung the inside of my nose.

"Do not presume to think that the only thing you stand to lose is your life." And he gestured sharply with one hand.

From this angle, I could just see the side of Lydia's face as she threw her head back, the scream fighting its way out of her like a scalded animal. To the left of the thrones, Jane smiled. That had been Edward's idea. Vampires were afraid of Jane. They saw her face and they knew what was coming for them, and they broke. Lydia didn't know Jane. She'd be more frightened if the pain seemed to come from nowhere.

"That was—" Lydia gasped. "How did—"

"Name your masters!" shouted Caius. "Say the names of those who turned you against us."

I closed my eyes and wished like it was Christmas morning. _Please don't let her brain be fried. Please don't let her brain be fried..._

"I'm—I'm sorry, sir. I don't remember."

Caius looked to Edward. Very slightly, he shook his head.

_Yes_, I thought in relief, right before Lydia let out a full-throated, surprised scream.

"Cease your lies, servant," commanded Caius. "Tell us the truth or you will face the same again."

"But that was the truth. I don't re—" and she let out another scream. I could barely see Jane smiling her oatmeal smile. She'd complained about working backstage when Edward had proposed it, but now she seemed to be having fun.

I hated public interrogations. I hated watching people I'd learned to like—okay, learned to tolerate—do something that mean to someone who was already caught. I'd used to think it was just the masters being jerks—Aro was going to suck out her whole brain anyway—but now I knew it was necessary. Nothing glued a team together like a good look at an enemy. So Caius asked questions, and Lydia slowly figured out that she couldn't lie, and bit by bit, the truth came out.

"There was—There was a man! They had a woman. They had pictures. My aunt, they had my aunt!"

Caius looked at Edward. He'd spent the past day digging through Lydia's personnel file. Since the filing cabinet was Edward's and Felix's memories, that hadn't been too hard. She'd been like Andrew, he'd told me. She was estranged from her family, willing to cut ties with her family, but she still actually gave a damn about the woman who'd raised her. But it sounded like she'd been more steadfast than my poor dead Andrew. From her story, the Romanians had had to wiggle the old woman's life right under her nose before she'd taken the bait.

"What did the man look like?" Caius asked about details, asked the same question over again, asked overlapping questions just to make sure she said the same thing each time. Was he tall? Was he short? Did he have an accent? Did he have any scars?

"He—blond!" gasped Lydia. "Tall! Spoke like Am—American or Canadian!"

Edward looked at me this time, nodding quickly. I squeezed Caroly's hand. This was Andrew's mystery man. She squeezed back, knowing what I meant: He'd seen the face in her thoughts, and it was the same man. This was where Edward would really be able to help. He'd see the images in her mind and translate "tall" into "five-foot-eleven," "Canadian" into "from Manitoba, turned circa 1862" or whatnot. He'd done it before.

More questions came. Caius asked the same ones again, peppered with new. Lydia was like a child tripping as she was dragged down a cobbled road. How had the strange man proved that he had Lydia's aunt? Where had he approached her? What kinds of information had she given him? When? Which names? Who was he working for?

"He wouldn't tell me! He wouldn't tell! A-AAH!"

The rest of the crowd moved and didn't move, the way that leaves all hiss when the same wind touches them. The trees stay where they are. In here it was muscles shifting, fists clenching, mouths opening over fangs with every thrum of Lydia's voice against the vaulted ceiling. Jane could always remind us that we were one big evil family.

"Heard him on the phone once! I looked up the words—Romanian. There were names. Stefan! Vladimir!

"One day I—I dug into the addresses he gave me, the codes for the receivers—" and here she delved into NewCom speak; the way the networks had been restructured after the Internet hubs had stopped running a thousand servers twenty-four-seven. "He, he usually hid them, but I checked every time, and I..." Lydia sagged against Rolfe and Felix. I looked at Edward, but he wasn't looking at me. I could guess: Lydia had figured out that her next words would get her hostage killed.

Jane made the decision simple for her, her shrieks were like a violin being murdered.

"—outside Alwar! Within ten miles of the NeoCore!"

Caius and Aro exchanged a look, and then Caius's hand closed on Aro's wrist. Aro nodded.

"You have told us a great deal, servant," said Caius as Lydia gave up, letting herself hang from her captors' arms as if they were chains. "Unfortunately, it is not enough to save you."

Her head twitched, as if she'd considered looking up but had decided not to bother.

"You see, our own teams had already pieced this much together: Our old enemies have been recruiting and rebuilding and plan to attack us again. This is the way of the world. It is the way of Stefan especially," he said. "Your information may help us narrow down the location of their stronghold, but no more."

"Yes more!" she all but yelled. "Yes, there's more. Don't make it— Don't do it again, please!"

Caius turned the firestarter in his hand with a meaningful crackle.

"Build-building an army. An army of the young—made no sense. Ready mid—midwinter!"

A hissing murmur spread across the crowd like a breeze bending dead grass. Midwinter, when the nights were longest.

"And their target?" Caius asked pointedly. From the corner of my field of vision, I saw Edward lean forward, eyes going just a little wide.

"Here," Lydia gasped. "Volterra. Wanted—he wanted me to be ready. Learn shift schedules. Describe exits." She fell, then. "Let them in."

"Well my children," Caius said. "What do we make of this?"

The hissing sound became a snarl. Lydia's head twitched, like the last jolt of a maglev as its converters fail.

Aro didn't bother with Lydia's arm or shoulder, covering her forehead with his hand as if to hold her head underwater. I kept my eyes on Edward, watching him as he watched the master and imagining I could read the answers on his face. Aro looked up at Caius with a bland smile, folded his arms and stepped away. I'd learned to know the master's signals, and Aro had just yielded Caius the floor.

Caius raised both arms, "It seems our servant Lydia has told us all she knows of the enemies who bought her loyalty. Do you believe this earns her a quick death?"

I knew this answer. This was our reward. This was always our reward. I was no better. The bitch had tried to kill me. Just because I felt sorry for her, just because it was my own venom, and Edward's and Carlisle's, didn't mean my fingers weren't clenching involuntarily with the thought of tearing one of my own kind apart.

The chant came: "No master," and I was part of the chorus.

I had to do it. We'd talked about it, Edward and Caroly and me. If I got a good piece of her, an arm or an organ, where the guard could see, I would be clean. In the end, all I could manage was an ear and a chunk of hair. It seemed a lot of the guard wanted a piece of the traitor. But it was something to throw into the bonfire.

Edward slipped beside me as the flames sent the sweet dark incense that had been my first and only newborn into the smog above the city. "It was good," he whispered in my ear, soft as a kiss. "You and the flames. They will remember." And he kissed the side of my head as if it had all been love talk.

"At least it's over," I breathed, hoping he didn't feel the tension in my arms, how much I'd enjoyed killing my ...my whatever she was. But then, Edward was breathing hard himself, and his topaz eyes were bright. There were some instincts that didn't get civilized out, I guessed, or that came back if you lived with barbarians.

His hand rubbed from my shoulder to my elbow and back. "The guard no longer suspects you," he murmured, "but it isn't over."

I looked up at him, remembering the sudden gleam in Aro's dull eyes, and Edward answered the question in my mind, "He read the answers in her thoughts, Bella," he told me. "And we're going after the Romanians." He looked slowly around the room, and I watched his gaze stop on Caroly, Demetri, Rolfe. "All of us."

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drf24


	48. Ch 47 Vulnerable

_Twilight_ and its three and two half sequels are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. This story is fanfiction based on characters, settings and concepts from _Twilight_, its first three sequels and the first half of _Midnight Sun_, all of which are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No party other than the submitting author may alter this work in any way other than font size and other reasonable accommodations to formatting.

I've been reading the Rick Riordan books for the first time (EDIT: have since read them a second time) and once they stopped trying to be Harry Potter, I found that they're actually darn good. Then I read _The Lost Hero_.

I am calling Renesmee on this, and if that isn't a thing, it should be.

For those of you who don't read the Percy Jackson series, after book five, Riordan retconned his universe to include an extra bunch of people who weren't supposed to exist and of whom the protagonists have never heard for reasons that make "a wizard did it" look like Pulitzer material. Also, it turns out that our heroes only won the day back in book five because these other guys were covering for them. It's one thing for a sequel to repeat the previous books, but it should never undermine them.

There was no reason for this. If he wanted to introduce these extra characters, he could have done it with Jason as a loner. If he wanted to take Percy out of the picture for a while, he could have said that no one's heard of the other camp because it was destroyed way back when and sent him off to rebuild it. I call shenanigans, Riordan. I call Renesmee-level shenanigans.

Camp Jupiter is Riordan's mutant half-human telepathic vampire baby with accelerated growth and pearly skin. We all kept reading anyway and most of the time it was a blast, but _what the hell_, Riordan? What the hell?

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"Thank you for saving my brother," –Rosalie, _New Moon_

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"Nine of us will be sent ahead to gather intel," Edward told Caroly and me but mostly Caroly, lacing up his boots full-speed with a practiced hand. "We need to find out where they're seated, where they're vulnerable. There will be two other teams—Corin and Felix in lead—but we'll work more or less independently." I nodded, trying not to look worried. Edward and Demetri and Caroly had done this dozens of times but never in a fortified compound armed with disciplined newborns and—according to what was left of Lydia—mature vampires with who knew what supernatural powers.

He was gleaming like a star in the part of my brain where my gift worked. Caroly too, even though Demetri was right in front of us, cleaning his fingernails with a knife. I'd barely been able to stand letting go of either of them since Aro had told the guard what they were up against. There could be vampires like Chelsea or Jane or Alec, and nothing to block them unless I could manage to—

"Edward—"

For the fifth time, the words wouldn't come out. I didn't even have to snap my teeth down in front of them. He looked at me as I stammered. At some point, so subtly that I hadn't felt it, the lessons had sunk in. If Aro knew I had a gift, one I'd been hiding from him, I would be punished, and Edward and Caroly would share my punishment, maybe Rolfe, Renata and Demetri too. If Aro knew I'd used that gift against him, we would all be _dead_. And no one had needed Chelsea to put those thoughts in me.

_Fight it_, I told myself. I was not like this. I was _not like_ this. I could make my own mouth say what I wanted it to. I could just tell Edward he had to work his mojo with the master and let me tag along.

But I could only blurt. "I want to go with you. So hard." There. I was just the pathetic little dutiful mate, all stammery with her googly-eyed devotion. That would keep me safe, and I hated it.

Edward took my hand, slipping my fingers in between his. "I will be careful, my love," he promised, kissing my fingers. "My duty demands that I go into danger—" meaning Caius and his stupid grudge had a hard-on for killing Romanians "—but I will give you as little cause to worry as I can. I swear it." He smiled. "Will you do the same for me?"

"I'll be careful. I promise," I said with a sick feeling. Caius's plan placed me in the middle of a half-dozen five-week-old newborns all eager to impress Teacher Bella. I'd be as safe as possible, maybe safer than the wives.

Now _that_ had been a revelation. Old Bitch One and Old Bitch Two were along for the goddamned ride. The masters would not be leaving _anyone_ in the compound—except our humans—and they felt the wives were safer with the guard than in the keep. I was still praying that I didn't end up in their honor guard. I didn't want to know what kinds of assistance they would need in the field, and the speculation was enough to make me miss nightmares.

I heard a deep-chested guffaw behind me and saw Rolfe walking up with a stack of pre-mission message tablets in his hands. I must have been more focused than I'd thought if I'd missed him clomping up behind me.

"They'll bring him back in one piece, Bella," Rolfe said cheerfully, clapping a heavy hand on Caroly's shoulder.

She gave a nervous laugh. "Right. Don't I always?"

Demetri's scratchy knife sounds stopped for a moment, then started up again.

Edward was rolling his eyes at Caroly's protectiveness. "You haven't let me down yet, dear girl," he answered quietly

"'Girl'?" She raised an eyebrow. "Technically I'm older than you. I think."

"If you mean your human body, you lied on your application. If you were a day older than twenty, I'll eat a room full of hamburgers."

"Good luck finding that much fresh meat. I was twenty-four and I used to have the birth certificate to prove it."

"Went into the furnace with the rest of your paper trail," Edward finished neatly, not letting go of my hands. "You see, Bella? I have a full-grown Caroly to watch my back and Demetri to disapprove of our attempts at levity. How could anything get past them?"

I must have been freaked out because I couldn't even enjoy the sniping. Jane got past them. Alec got past them. Chelsea got past them every damned day, and I was lucky that the way her gift worked or the way my gift worked let me reboot Edward to his factory settings, and that was a whole other set of worries. I hoped to God all the back-and-forth wasn't giving him vampire brain cancer. Outwardly, he didn't seem any the worse for wear except for whenever anyone—

"So are we going to talk about the real issue?" Caroly asked.

"Which real issue might that be?" asked Edward just as Rolfe came up with, "Again?"

"I'm just saying it's weird!" she protested.

"Well you've just been saying it for weeks," Rolfe answered, sitting down heavily on the edge of the sill. "The advanced teams are shipping out in twelve hours. If you have concerns, you should have brought them to the masters days ago."

Caroly shook her head and started counting on her fingers. "Lydia knew Vladimir and Stefan's names but not her handler's. She knew Romanian base was outside some town in India but she didn't know where she was going to be meeting Andrew's nomad next week—whom we're still calling Andrew's nomad. It's weird! Why be so secretive about the low-risk stuff but then drop bombs like that?"

Demetri put down his knife and swiveled toward us, "Caroly, if the Romanians were going to feed us false information, they'd make us work harder to get it. Vladimir is too canny to be this obvious about it."

"So we assume it's not a trap just because it looks too much like a trap? That's psychotic."

"Well that's what you're heading out for, isn't it?" Rolfe added. "You guys get there first, confirm the intel and then we squash this bug of a coven like we should have three hundred years ago."

"Caroly's right that it's off, but the masters know all about it," Edward reassured. "Caius is one of the best strategists the world has ever seen, Caroly. I assure you, none of this has missed his attention." He tapped the side of his head.

"You've been fooled before," Caroly pointed out. "If you couldn't be fooled, Lydia wouldn't have been able to spy on us in the first place."

"She concealed her thoughts. Badly. That is not the same thing as fooling me," said Edward. "For someone to pull off the kind of trick you're talking about, she would have to bury the knowledge that she was a spy so deeply that she actually believed herself to be loyal, and _then_ she'd still have to collect all her information and send it off without thinking about what she was doing or why. That takes mental discipline and a deep emotional drive. It's a rare mind that can keep that up for even a while. Lydia was an ordinary woman. It was completely beyond her."

Demetri and I exchanged a glance. The truth was, we both knew someone who could do exactly that.

It had happened in Paris of all places. City of lights, romance and, I don't know, deep-fried French stuff. I'd have been thrilled to visit when I was human and could actually see the sunlight on the Sienne or hold hands with Edward at three in the morning, but I'd only been to Paris on missions, four times total, and I'd never found the place to be that great. In the city's defense, it was possible that ripping a woman's head off and burning her body killed the mood just as effectively as it killed nomads.

It had made so much sense that they would be there. I should have seen it coming. Edward had even told me that they liked to do it.

I'd been between newborns and Caius had wanted me to get more field experience, so when a spot for a fourth had opened up on one of Demetri's missions, I'd volunteered. It had been Edward, Caroly, Demetri and me, as close to friends-only as things got in Volterra.

The mission had already been over and we were getting ready to leave. Actually, when you don't need to sleep or pack a toothbrush, "getting ready to leave" usually means just "leaving." I don't know what Edward would have done if we'd still had a criminal to track down. He'd gotten very job-oriented since Aro had decided that he, Demetri and Corly were the holy trinity.

The sun wasn't fully set, but it had been a rainy day, and we were spread out, sticking to the shadows on our way out of town. Edward and Caroly were about half a block ahead of me when I saw him stop. By now, I knew Edward's in-the-field body language pretty well, and it wasn't his ambush reaction, it wasn't his found-the-prey reaction and it wasn't his hey-that's-funny reaction. The change in his posture was vibrant and immediate. I watched him motion to Caroly to stay put. Then he twisted looking over his shoulder at me and ever so slightly turned his head to the right.

And from the alley that I'd just passed, I picked up the scent of vampire. Exactly as if they'd seen or smelled us coming and ducked out of the way.

I remembered thinking that it was probably just nomads. That happened pretty often. Sometimes they got invited along on the mission as witnesses. Other times, they kept their heads down. If the Volturi were after you, they'd find you no matter what. If they weren't after you, there was no sense drawing their attention. Live long enough and everyone gets some little infraction or near miss that they don't want the law to know about. Things had gotten worse since Edward had gotten a reputation as Aro's pet telepath, especially considering that only a few people outside the family knew exactly what he looked like. Who knew which of the Volturi guard could be collecting incriminating evidence just by being nearby?

I made eye contact with Demetri, and he nodded. I was the smallest and least threatening member of our team. I would go first and establish that this wasn't an attack. I could still remember the feel of the concrete against my shoes as I walked in between those walls. There were a few perks to being part of the guard. One was that vampires twice my size tensed up in fear as soon as they saw me in my smoke-gray cloak. I couldn't pretend I didn't like _that_.

But "fear" would have been an exaggeration here, and "twice" would have been toning it down. This vampire was easily bigger than Felix and almost as good as projecting an air of power. He also knew his body language. I immediately registered the placement of his feet and the partial duck of his chin as defensive; he was telegraphing that he _could_ hold his own without doing anything overtly threatening. The female at his side was more ordinary—combat-wise, at least. They were both dressed as tourists. She even had a shopping bag on her elbow.

"What do you want with us, Volturi?" he asked boldly. "We've broken no laws!"

I didn't move for a second, not sure how to respond. Finally, I raised my hands up to my hood and let it fall back. Some confusion passed over his face when he saw my yellow eyes, but by then, Edward had caught up, striding briskly into the alley with Demetri only two steps behind.

The big one tensed, exactly like a predator who knows he's outnumbered. What I didn't understand was why he was acting like he didn't know—

Edward pulled own his hood off in one smooth motion, stepping forward.

"Emmett, it's _me_," he said.

Demetri paused. "This is Emmett?" he asked.

Emmett's mouth hung open, and he took one step closer to Edward, as if he couldn't accept what he was seeing. "Wait, if you're..." then he pointed at me. "Then _she's_ got to be..." I hadn't realized that I looked that different. "Bella!" he said, and the smile seemed to take up his whole face. "You really are alive!" And before I knew it I was two feet off the ground in the biggest bear hug of my life.

So of course Caroly picked that moment to join us. I registered the rasp of her snarl and the swish of her cloak just in time to twist in Emmett's arms and hold up a hand. "Wait!"

"Drop her, criminal!" she hissed.

"Caroly, it's all right!" I shouted.

"Who's this?" Emmett asked, as if a kitten had jumped up into his lap. "I'm Emmett. This is Rose."

"These are two of the Cullens," Demetri was explaining.

"Edward's old coven?" she asked. "But then why are they—"

Before anyone could get another word out, Rosalie moved, so fast I barely knew to look. Before I could blink she had her arms around Edward, holding him so tight I thought his skin would crack. Demetri's eyes widened, and I saw him shift his weight, but I put a hand on his arm and shook my head. Her shoulders were shaking. I knew sobbing when I saw it.

"It's all my fault. I'm so _sorry_," she said, as Edward repeated "It's okay. It's okay" over and over.

I didn't notice as Emmett put me down. Back in my human days, Rosalie had always seemed like a tower, a mountain of implacable defense. She'd only said two words to me because Esme and Alice made her. Deep down, I'd wondered why a nice guy like Emmett had settled for someone that mean. Then I'd come to Volterra and seen what most vampire women were like. Rose was a prize.

I should have realized. Of course she loved him. She'd lived with him for seventy years, and he was Edward. You couldn't know Edward that long and not love him.

"Why would you think it was your fault?" he murmured as he touched the sides of her face. "What's your fault?"

There was a vulnerability to Rosalie that hadn't been there before, or maybe my human eyes hadn't been able to see it. She was made of glass now. She rubbed a finger across each eye, as if they itched from trying to make tears, "I made that stupid phone call. If I hadn't made that call. And now you _and her_—" Rosalie looked at me like I was some Ming vase that she'd dropped on the floor. "Bella, I swear I never wanted this to happen to you."

Edward, put his hand on her cheek and pulled her back so she was looking at him. "Of course you called me. You thought I needed to know. "

Caroly stepped up to me and murmured. "What are they talking about?" I started to turn toward her to explain, maybe sweet talk Demetri into delaying our departure a bit, when Edward added—

"And everything worked out in the end."

I froze, suddenly glad that Demetri couldn't see my face from where he was standing. Emmet could, though.

"I get to protect our world, Rosalie. They let Bella and me get married. I don't have to pretend to be some dumb kid all the time. Sometimes it's pretty great."

I made eye contact with Emmett, hoping he could read my expression. I tried to say with my eyes that Edward was lying to make Rosalie feel better, but Emmett just kept looking weirded out.

Emmett stepped toward me, shaking his head. "She hears 'it wasn't your fault' from the rest of us ten thousand times, but she'll only buy it if it comes from him," he told me.

"He's very persuasive," I answered, glad to have something to do other than watch Edward with Rosalie. She seemed calmer now, though she still wasn't breathing evenly. It seemed voyeuristic, like peeping through a window.

"You should have seen her when we came to Italy to get you," he said. "Bella, she was a wreck about it. No one should have to get turned the way you did."

"This from a man who was almost bear food? It wasn't so bad," I said. "Other than hurting like hell dipped in lemon juice."

"Ha!" Emmett barked. "I missed you, little Bella!" And it sounded so completely different in Emmett's voice from in Aro's or even Rolfe's. He was talking to me as if I were his trusted confidante, as if I really had spent the past twenty years as his sister-in-law. I realized that I'd never seen him this close up before. Even with his enthusiasm for my presence in Edward's life, I guess I'd always been a little afraid of him. He nodded toward Caroly with a rough kind of courtesy. "Are you gonna introduce me to your friends?"

"Yeah, Bella," Caroly said darkly. "Are you going to introduce your _friends_?" I'd frowned, wondering what the heck she was so not-amused about.

"It's always a pleasure to meet vampires who obey the law," Demetri interrupted Edward's reassurances that the masters didn't make us drink human blood. "But I'm afraid our duty cannot wait for a social visit."

"We couldn't delay an hour, Demetri?" asked Edward. "It's been years since the master had word from Carlisle. I don't even know where they're living these days." But if the glance that Emmett and Rose tossed each other was any sign, the Cullens liked it that way.

"You should go, Edward," Rosalie said at last. "At least we'll be able to tell Alice that we saw you."

Edward answered without missing a beat. "Who?"

Emmett's mouth gaped open and I could practically see the words taking shape in his lungs. _What do you mean "who"? Alice! Spiky hair, insatiable fashion sense and sees the future? Oh, and she's the one thing that Aro wants more than anything in the world and he'll suck the juice out of your brain to get the last little scrap of her._

"Oh, honey!" I said, touching Edward on the shoulder and hoping like hell that Emmett's thoughts hadn't already done the damage. "Jasper got married. Rosalie was just telling me before you joined us."

"He did?" Edward asked, like a child hearing that his favorite movie was on. "That's wonderful news, Rose. Jasper isn't the sort who should be alone. Maybe I'll get to meet the new Mrs. Cullen some day. I wonder what she—" and then his head jerked to the side as if Felix was using him for a punching bag, his eyes squeezing shut like they were full of acid.

"Uh, Edward?" Emmett asked, like a man talking to a leper and wondering which part would fall off next.

Edward blinked slowly, searching my face as if he didn't know why we were standing there. "What were we talking about?" he asked, one word at a time.

"Esme has a new garden," I told him.

"Of course. She does like to garden." He gave me a terrifyingly trusting smile. "You're so good to me, my love."

Demetri cleared his throat. "We should be going, Brother," he said.

Edward nodded and answered, out of long habit,"You're right, Brother." Then he stopped short, turning to Emmett, "I mean— He's..."

"Edward," I cut off his attempts to dig himself out. "Duty calls."

He didn't look over his shoulder as we walked away ...as I _led_ him away with my arm slung around his back. I did. I was in time to see Emmett pull Rosalie into his arms, murmuring something that I couldn't hear.

The trip home wasn't any better. Demetri had decades of experience choosing safe paths, and Edward could tell us when to run and when to slow down to human speed. When we did, we spread out, so that sometimes one or two of us would be alone. As we crossed back into Tuscany, Caroly fell into step beside me.

"Why didn't you tell them who I was?" she asked baldly.

"And who are you, Caroly?" I answered, suddenly pissed off.

"Not your _friend_," she said.

"What then?" I asked, turning on my heel so that we were eye-to-eye. "What are you that I'm allowed to say? Does the Master want Carlisle to know who turned you? Don't you think I want to tell people—" _how proud I am, how lucky we are, how fucking sick I get whenever I remember that the red in your eyes isn't from Halloween lenses._

"Who's Alice?" she asked.

I gave her my best training room glare. "Someone we don't talk about."

"Was she Edward's mate before you?" she asked.

"Edward didn't have a mate before me."

"Was she someone Edward turned before me?"

"Edward only ever turned Marcell before you."

"Is she like them?" she asked.

I remembered Edward describing Caroly's gift to me, the way he'd wondered at the lines of loyalty and competitiveness and affection that she could show him flowing between people like water currents. What would Rose and Emmett have looked like with Edward standing three feet away?

"Why? What did you see?"

"Nothing!" she reacted, halfway to a shout. She recovered, setting her jaw. Her head fell back, the searching look forced out of her dark red eyes. "It's fine. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter."

The grass swished against our legs like tiny whips. It wasn't fine. Even though she didn't know, she should be able to tell that much.

"_We're_ his coven now," Caroly insisted. "They can't have him back."

Before we could say any more, Demetri signaled for us to run again. Caroly and I weren't alone together for the rest of the mission.

Demetri hadn't seemed shaken up by what had happened in the alley, but I knew that he was. He'd seen something that he couldn't write off as a side effect of Carlisle's influence or as Edward-the-deviant being reformed by spending time among normal, well-adjusted vampires. But I could practically see him filing away every piece of information, putting it somewhere he could use.

And now it was coming out of the toolshed. It was possible to fool a telepath or to twist that telepath into a broken toy so that he could fool himself. If Lydia had hated the masters as much as Edward had loved Alice, then she could have done it. She could have helped her friends lay their own trap, and Edward and Caroly would be the first ones into its jaws.

.

.

.

I had my own duties to attend to, officially at least. I had ten newborns to prepare for an all-out assault against an enemy in an unknown location. I wished that I'd been busy enough to keep from worrying.

Four of my ten newborns were women. Of these, two would be assigned to the wives under Renata as full-time guards. The others... Most of the others would be under my command, which meant that I would keep them from losing control and either attacking the wrong people, attacking the right people at the wrong time, or breaking and running. At least, that's what I would do until I got my chance.

Marjane, our best tech any by some accounts my best graduate, had been given her own orders by Caius, privately. It wouldn't have made sense to keep secrets now that the spy had been caught, except it was Caius. His paranoia had paid off too many times. I'd been told to train two guards just for her. As Demetri, Edward and Caroly sorted out the last details before their departure, I went back to that.

It was all about the angles.

Vampire flesh was harder than just about anything. I mean, _I_ knew of a creature whose teeth were tough enough to rip Laurant apart and save my then-human ass, but I wasn't planning on bringing that up at any staff meetings. Short of having a werewolf for a best friend, the only way to take a vampire down was with another vampire, and that took practice. The shape of the human body had evolved to meet the needs of bones and nerves and muscles, not stone and metal or whatever it was that we were. That meant that the body was weak in some places and strong in others. To kill a vampire, you had to make your enemies weaknesses line up against your own strengths. Problem was, they could do the same thing. You had to be better.

Genevivre and Letitia had been picking up the basics pretty well. I had them back on drills to keep their minds occupied more than anything else—not that that mattered when you could think as fast as we did.

We were at it in the practice tunnel when Marjane came down. She had her own preparations, but fortunately for me, she considered this to be one of them. We could have used a standin, but it wouldn't have been her height or move the way she did.

"Tightened up the routine since my day?" she asked in her husky voice. Her accent had thinned over the years. There was only a hint of Iran in her Italian now. I'd asked her to teach me Farsi, but her duties in communications and supervising Aro's engineering acquisitions left her little time. Her dark hair swished elegantly as she dropped down to the floor. Renata had updated her haircut, I saw. I was lucky to look young enough that I could get away with long hair all the same length, but Marjane had been nearly thirty when she'd been turned, and needed a grown woman's cut. Lucky for her, today's over-sharp blocked-in styles looked good on her.

"Your day was fifteen years ago, Marjane," I pointed out. "Do you think I wasted all that time?"

Back when Philip had been in the cage, I'd pulled Corin over and conned him into giving me a fresh lesson. Eventually, I'd convinced Demetri that it was worth his time too. Rolfe had been easier. I'd gotten good at asking Heidi for small favors. One by one, year by year, I got the best fighters to spill their guts. I also read army manuals and watched training videos from at least six countries, not just for the moves but for the way they were broken down and explained. I practiced with Renata and Caroly. I learned by trial and error.

Was I the best fighter we had? Hell no. Nothing could beat decades of real-world experience. Caroly loved to show off for the recruits by flooring me inside a minute. But after nineteen years, could I turn other people into fighters? Hell yes, and I could do it fast too.

The past five weeks had been insane. Now that the preparations were coming to a close, I finally had time to freak the hell on out, especially about what Caroly had said about this being a trap. Caius hadn't been lying when he'd told Lydia that the library teams already knew the Romanians were gathering. They'd even narrowed it down to northern India, but they hadn't known exactly where.

Ever since their first stronghold had been destroyed, the Romanians had been willing to move around every few years rather than sculpt one city to their needs. We didn't always know where they were. Because they hadn't explicitly broken the law—there were no rules against trying to build a fancier coven than Aro's—we usually didn't come after them even when we did know. But Caius liked to keep an eye on them. I hadn't forgotten Croatia. I'd created the weakness with my stupid plan, but I hadn't been the one to tell Jonas to try his little strategy. There were things in this world worse than Aro.

The countryside had gotten so empty from Italy's population drain that on cold nights I could even take my newborns out to the Riserva to practice fighting outdoors. It was too bad that the terrain was so different from what we'd be facing.

Unlike Volterra, which had only had about eleven thousand humans when I'd come there and had shrunk to about eight thousand since, Alwar was a good-sized city, a regional capital. At first, I'd wondered what made it such a good base. I mean, India was on the rise—the whole southeast was. The Indians had been making money hand over fist selling food and supplies to China even before the war, and they had a thriving quaternary economy. Most of the college brochures that I'd flipped through back in my last year of human life had each had a picture of at least one Indian student in them, but not any more. The schools back home were too good. As the developing world came into its own, the U.S. was losing its position as the destination of choice for education, and applicants from India had dropped off. It made more sense for Indian students to go to their own country's gleaming research institutions. Only the Ivy League still drew the top talent from countries like India, Korea and Vietnam. I guessed it was like an American student deciding to go to Oxford or the Sorbonne. Why bother crossing the puddle for anything but the best?

Some people even said that India would soon be the next big superpower, but I wasn't sure. They'd been saying stuff like that about Brazil since the seventies.

As a country became more civilized, it became harder for vampires to live there unnoticed—wild vampires, at least. Covens could manage if they were disciplined enough, but few covens were. The Masters had lived in Italy since before it _was_ Italy, and they knew how to blend. Over the years, Master Marcus had shaped the city to our needs, guiding the architecture and installing vampire-friendly customs in the human populace. Every twenty years or so, gray cloaks became fashionable among young humans, allowing us to go outside during twilight without drawing too much notice. But the Romanians were foreigners in India. Judging by the newbors and minders who had been attacking us in the field, they weren't recruiting locally and still spoke Romanian among themselves. They'd stand out.

Marjane had been eager to explain. Alwar was one of the first cities in India to install a control system based on the Rio model. A few years before they'd hosted the 2016 Summer Olympics, the mayor of Rio de Janiero had commissioned a full-scale operation control center. They'd started out collecting basic data, like the locations of cell phones and what people posted on the social network sites that had been hot at the time. This had allowed them to track things like traffic patterns and economic activity, and dangerous weather conditions, all in real time. In 2015, they'd used people's social media updates to track a flu outbreak in real time. The technicians had mined the system for Twitter and Facebook posts mentioning illness, combined the information with location tracking, and sent messages to anyone who'd been within twenty feet of an infected person, requesting that they stay home from work. That flu season had been the shortest and least severe in the city's history. It had kicked off what people had come to call the Big Data movement.

Large-scale tracking systems like this one had never caught on in the fiercely privacy-conscious U.S. or in most of Europe, but they were very popular in Sweden and Finland, both of which had national systems. Both countries had also traded in cell phone systems for implants under residents' skin. There had been jokes about lojacking Swedes and Finns like pedigree Shi-tzus, but the number of missing persons cases had dropped to infinitesimal levels.

Far fewer vampire nomads chose to visit Scandinavia these days. It was too easy to get caught, by the police or by us.

Marjane had pointed out that if the Romanians had found a way to access or gain control of the city's system, they would have access to all that information: It wouldn't be hard to develop an algorithm to convert where people were, what they ate, and where they congregated into predictions of where they _would_ be, the best places to feed, and patterns indicating when another vampire came near their territory. It would be the ultimate early warning system, more than making up for having to deal with the city's large and untrained human population.

Alwar made even more sense symbolically. It was the former capital of a princely state that had been subjugated by an imperial power. I didn't know if the Indians had an equivalent for "the South shall rise again," but the Romanians sure as hell did.

I motioned Marjane toward the center of the tunnel. Letitia and Genevieve stepped aside, like ghosts in their cloud-gray cloaks. "In combat, you'll probably be facing multiple attackers. For now, we'll practice with just the one. Drill five." And the tunnel slipped into rapid motion.

I practiced attacking Marjane and the girls practiced stopping me. While she was still. While she was in motion. While she was crouched over her equipment. They'd gotten better. After fifteen tries, I only touched her once.

"Were you here the last time?" Genevieve asked me tentatively. She'd been working in legal, but the masters had wanted grunts for this mission, and she was easily six feet tall. Her iridescent red eyeys blazed through the reddish-brown hair that had fallen across her face as she continued her question, "When the masters brought the Romanians down before."

"No," I answered, motioning for her to repeat the defensive move I'd taught her. Letitia hung back, watching. She was shorter than Genevieve, but only by a hair. I was sure Caius had picked her because they looked like twins with their hoods raised.

"The last major Romanian incursion was before my time," I answered. It had been in the fifteen hundreds, actually. Rolfe had told me about it. The Romanians had had a castle in the middle of nowhere. There had been an old-fashioned siege. This was going to be a completely different fight. We just didn't know what kind of fight yet.

There had also been more than a guard then. The masters had recruited witnesses, citizens of the vampire world to help tear down the coven that had violated the law so flagrantly, appearing in public before humans and drinking blood in their presence. Over the centuries, one of the Rumanian masters had been confused with a national hero, Vlad the Impaler.

This time... I didn't know whether the Masters would put out a call for witnesses, but they hadn't yet. The Romanians had attacked the Volturi, rebelled against the Volturi, but _technically_, that wasn't a crime so long as no one in the human world noticed. This thing would be all wrong even if Caroly didn't think it was a trap.

"Teacher Bella," said Letitia. I raised my head. She spoke to me with too much confidence, as if she were already someone important in the coven. She would learn. Or, more likely, she'd be ripped apart by vampires with ten times her experience with her illusions still intact. "When will the masters inform us of the plan?"

"The plan," I repeated, suddenly realizing what she meant. "You've been given your orders. You may be given more before we depart. If the masters want you to know anything else, they will tell you."

Sometimes I didn't believe the things I heard myself saying. This was not one of those times.

Well I had _my_ battle priorities in order, the same order they'd been in for the past twenty-one years. Oh, I supposed wanted to win. After years of training soldiers I had developed something like professional pride. And everything I'd heard about the Romanians added up to them being brutes who should have gone up like Roman candles long ago. But if Edward got killed in the process, I wouldn't give a damn about any of it.

So I would nod when Caius gave us plans A through H (the later plans weren't there so much in case the first ones failed so much as for different possibilities; if the enemy chose an underground bunker, plan C but if it was an urban center, plan D; Caius ascribed to the Choose Your Own Adventure school of strategy).

Smile. Nod. Sneak away from my assigned duties and to the vanguard so I could shield Edward, Caroly, and heck anyone else who happened to be within my range whenever I wasn't too busy. The battle would be so nuts with my newborns running wild that no one would notice little old me.

Lucinda looked up at me and I could see something underneath her confidence. Something trusting.

"Thank you anyway. You're so good to us, Teacher."

I stopped moving. I was perfectly still. Fortunately, around here, that didn't faze anyone.

I shook it off. "Drill two," I murmured, but my heart wasn't in it.

Couldn't she have said anything else?

And a sick little voice in the back of my head whispered, _Thank you for saving me_ in Croatian.

It was like Edward had told me so long ago. Consequences. They could make me turn back. My conscience was where my will was weak. If I'd been willing to do anything to get what I wanted, the two of us would have been free years ago. I wasn't. So we weren't.

So I'd do my job, or _duty_ as Edward kept calling it, even though it sounded funny in an American accent. And I'd do what pathetic googly spouses with no superpowers had done for thousands of years: I'd pray.

.

.

.

Rio's operations center is very real. It's raising both interest about its potential and concerns about privacy issues. I owe this information to an NPR radio short detailing the project. The "maybe we can track a flu outbreak in real time" idea is projected but has not happened yet. The implants in Sweden and Finland are fiction, but considering their track record of preferring safety and services over privacy, the Swedes would be the first to go for it if anyone does.

drf24


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